Whose Mistake US Slavery?
Most people today are confident that the US in 1860 having ~4M slaves (out of its 31M population) was a big moral mistake. But who exactly is to blame for this mistake? I broke the causal path into these 8 steps:
Africa Wars - African nations/tribes go to war against each other. Sometimes in part to grab slaves.
Enslave Losers - African war winners enslave losers instead of killing them. Other options more risked revenge.
Sell to Traders - African war winners sell slaves to African slave traders
Sell to Non-Africans - African slave traders move slaves to coast (~10-20% die on way), sell to Non-Africans
Move to US - European slave traders move ~4% of African slaves to US (~10-15% die on way), sell them there
US farmers buy - US farmers buy slaves, work them
Let slaves have kids - US farmers let slaves live long, and have kids. This was unusual in history of slavery.
Treat kids as slaves - US farmers treat kids of slaves as also slaves. If this were not allowed, they’d not have allowed step 7.
Polls with 4009 responses rated which of these were the worse moral mistakes, relative to a max of 100:
It seems that respondents put most blame here on people who choose to enslave over to kill or stop from existing. Even though when directly asked they say that slavery is not as bad an outcome as death or non-existence.
I would love to see some data on the unusualness of "let slaves live long, and have kids". The prototypical slavery in minds (even if not in history), the Greco-Roman one, was like that; serfdoms across Europe (many of which were basically glorified slaveries) were like that; and I am pretty sure Chinese slavery was familial as well.
Actually, there are even two questions here:
1. Was it even really unusual for slavery _writ large_?
2. Even if it was, was it unusual _for European heritage_?
Also, both "enslaving is worse than killing" and "being enslaved is better than being killed" can be true, if one considers that enslaving implies keeping enslaved and so is an _extended_ moral decision.
Who is to blame for slavery ? The answer is anyone involved in the development and maintenance of the supply chain. There is no sliding scale of blame here, either. Once you participate in something like this you are just as guilty as anyone else. Take away the market and you have no need for the slaves. Take away any step in the procurement process and the supply chain falters unless you have already established a population of slaves which you are breeding locally. If I had to say which was the most egregious of all of the crimes listed above, that would be it - establishing a population you use as breeding stock for slaves permanently. Otherwise, all of these are equally heinous crimes against humanity.