Slavery made Euro-American trade uniquely self-catalyzing before industrialization.

Evidence

Pomeranz argues that “slavery helped make Euro-American trade unlike any between Old World cores and peripheries” (267) by making “the flow of needed resources to Europe self-catalyzing in ways that consensual trade between Old World regions was not: it anticipated, even before industrialization, the self-perpetuating division of labor between primary products exporters and manufacturing regions in the modern world” (24). — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 873

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘self-catalyzing flow of resources’ mechanism is a direct historical precedent for how platform data extraction compounds, echoing Milgrom’s self-reinforcing institutions and the reader’s infrastructure writing. — connects to: Slavery powered European merchant capitalism and American expansion — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 19; Slave labor sustained the extra-European market that industrial capitalism built on; Slave labor underpinned the political and economic power of European empires (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Slavery powered European merchant capitalism and American expansion #expands (0.90) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 19
• Slavery was a critical foundation for early capitalism #corroborates (0.90) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 584
• Slave labor sustained the extra-European market that industrial capitalism built on #qualifies (0.85)
• Slave labor underpinned the political and economic power of European empires #corroborates (0.80)
• Commodification of labor predated American slavery in Europe #qualifies (0.80)
• Sugar slavery predated and anchored the Atlantic economy before North America mattered #qualifies (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 262
• Slavery was the economic engine of early American growth #exemplifies (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 533