I don't think the English thought that Britain was ethnically homogeneous at the time -- if nothing else there were Jews and Irishmen and Welshmen and Scotts and Gypsies (all targets of ethnic hostility, I will admit).
^^^^^ CB: So, are you switching to the position that capiatlism needed ethnic conflict at its start ? Yes, the English colonized and oppressed the Irish especially, but they didn't categorize them as racially distant as
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Why do colonialism and the slave trade require racism?
^^^^ CB: They _are_ racism or White supremacy. Before them there was no racism in the modern sense of race, no White supremacy. The modern concept of race originated in capitalism's origin in colonialism and slavery.
The specific "ethnic" division that is central to capitalism is socalled White supremacy. Europeans invented this, went around the world designating themselves as White and everybody else as various colors. The concept of the White race originates in the "White race." It is a self-designation as superior to "darker" peoples.
Non-Europeans were designated as less than human. Because with the rise of the concept of equality of humans with the rise of capitalism ( Feudalism had a concept of inequality among different classes of people within feudalist society; the bourgeois started to overthrow this) in , for example, the Declaration of Independence, it was necessary to designate the newly colonized and enslaved peoples as less than human to justify not treating them as equals
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There's have been lots of imperial and slave-taking societies that had no racist ideology. The Ottomans, the Romans, the Mongols, the Aztecs (I think), etc. It is a historical accident that the European powers at the time of colonialism were taking slaves (almost) exclusively from an area of the world where people looked noticeably different from Europeans. If West Africa had been occupied by people with white skin, would things have been different, or would the slave-traders just have come up with some other ideology to justify it?
^^^^^ CB: It is not that imperialism and slavery of all types throughout history needs White supremcacy and racism. It is that _capitalism_ needs racism/White supremacy, which is identical at its origin with colonialism and slavery.
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