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There was an interesting documentary on contemporary
slavery on the British Channel 4 TV last night.
This alleged that :
the number of slaves in the world today is greater than the 13 million
slaves involved in 4 centuries of the Atlantic slave trade
that certain commodities on the world market are produced either
predominantly by, or in large portion by slave labour.
the commodities examined in detail were cocoa from cote d'ivoire, which
it alleges is largely produced by slaves and comprises more than 1/2 of
the cacao on the world market, and rugs from Northern India.
This is relevant to the discussion we had earlier on whether
slave labour creates value. It is not a mere historical issue
but one of the contemporary articulation of modes of production.
Paul Cockshott
paul@cockshott.com
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