Another big lie

In his book The 10 Big Lies about America, Michael Medved tackles fallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country. In the last blog I covered his comments on Native American genocide. In this one I would like to look at his exploration of another huge issue -- is the United States uniquely guilty for the crime of slavery, and is its wealth based on stolen African labor?

His response rests on four important propositions -- slavery is a universal institution, not an American innovation; the slave economy played only a minor role in building American power and prosperity (frankly it retarded economic progress more than it advanced it); America deserves unique credit for rapidly ending slavery; there is very little reason to believe that today's African Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained back in Africa.

First, slavery is a universal problem. For example, Brazil imported at least seven times as many African slaves as the future United States and abolished slavery 25 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Then there is the 1300-year history of ceaseless Arab slave trading. Muslim societies enslaved many more innocent Africans then did people in the New World. In fact, it is in Muslim societies that black slavery is perpetuated today in Mauritania, the Arabian peninsula, Sudan, and elsewhere. Medved says the Arab slave trade lasted longer, covered far greater geography, and enslaved more human beings then later European traders. For example, Saudi Arabia outlawed slave owning only in 1962. Even the most primitive indigenous peoples practiced slavery in every corner of the globe. It existed in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and czarist Russia.

Even Africans themselves were involved in slavery long before any intrusion by Europeans. During 400 years of European slave trade, it was Africans who acted as collectors of the victims. Kings of some regions attacked neighboring villages on a regular basis to seize slaves for commerce.

Medved, in addition, attacks the idea that slavery brought about economic development in America. He says the persistence of slavery in southern states actually limited the pace of economic development while abolition in the northern states led to faster growth in population, wealth, and productivity. The slave system in the South produced great wealth for only the tiniest minority in a struggling region that remained predominantly poor.

Who deserves credit for getting rid of slavery in the world? The movement was spearheaded in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere by fervent evangelical Christians. John Adams and Benjamin Franklin both committed themselves to the abolitionist cause. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included a strong condemnation of slavery, but the Continental Congress removed this in order to win approval from slave owners.

Medved says the United States should not offer reparations for slavery. He makes a case for the fact that modern African Americans are better off here than in Africa, where there is chaos, corruption, and violence on a large scale. He claims that Americans of African dissent enjoyed much greater prosperity and human rights than citizens whose families lived for a long time in Africa.

The author has much more to say about other lies involving the United States, but I will save those for future blogs.