ERIC WILLIAMS THESIS ON CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY AND ARGUMENTS MADE FOR AND AGAINST THE THESIS.
Many historians justify that the evolving of the industrial revolution was based on slavery and mainly the triangular trade. The triangular trade was the route taken by Europeans to transport goods to Africa in exchange for slaves to be taken to the Americans. The triangular trade was seen as the first system of global commerce which linked Britain, Africa and the Americans. The most important colonies for the sugar growth were West Indies islands. During the 17th and the 18th century Dutch settlers in Brazil had perfected their sugar cultivation at the same time the triangular trade was taking place between America, Britain and Africa. As the …show more content…

As Williams justified that the brutish government introduced the mercantile system to increase profits, stalely disagrees and stares that the monopoly by the British government was unprofitable and led to a financial failure . In the table below we are shown the British national income estimates. It shows that the contribution of slave trade profits to British national income is small. It also shows that there was one pick point for the slave trade; this was between the years 1761-1780 .

Some historians have come Williams defence by supporting his thesis. William Darity is one of the economic historians who are well against Richardson’s work. He argues that his data collection was based on the formula by roger Anstey in the mid 1970 to contrast the profitability estimates of the slave trade . A recent exchange between Inikori and Anderson and Richardson reinforces the drift of the debate. Anderson and Richardson seek to uphold the view that the British African trade was extremely competitive, yielding "normal profits," and that therefore profitability was low. Inikori continues to take the position that the trade was monopolistically organized, yielding "economic profits," and that therefore profitability was high .The principal arguments against Williams hypothesis have been that the quantitative importance of the West Indies was simply too small to matter to British growth. Secondly that the colonies were