The Capitalism and Slavery Debate: Land, Labor, and Capital

This article revisits the capitalism and slavery debate, specifically regarding the role of sugar plantations in the long eighteenth century. It begins by distinguishing between the Williams thesis and a more defensible version recently developed by Marxist historians. It then distinguishes between historians those who see slavery as inimical or essential to capitalism and those who see it as a nonessential but accelerating factor. Next it argues that at issue in the debates is not so much the capitalist character of plantation agriculture but its contribution to industrial capitalism in imperial metropoles. Historians who argue for the viability and capitalist dynamism of the sugar-slavery plantation complex often mistake growth in production for the self-sustaining productivity growth definitive of industrial capitalism. Finally, this article observes that arguments for the viability of the sugar-slavery plantation complex generally ignore the besetting problem of soil exhaustion, a bias presently being overcome by environmental histories.