On Jul 10, 9:15=A0am, Steve Hayes <hayesm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jul 2008 21:51:09 -0700 (PDT), "Peter H.M. Brooks"
>
> <Peter.H.M.Bro...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >On Jul 9, 5:23=A0am, Steve Hayes <hayesm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >> Thus destroying local autarky
>
> >I've been wondering a bit about this comment. I understand your point,
> >of course, but usually people describe something as an autarky when
> >the situation is voluntary. North Korea has established itself as
> >close to one, Albania did after Hoexa threw out both the Russians and
> >the Chinese - after first refusing to talk to anybody else. Japan's
> >long period of isolation was deliberate too. The indigenous people of
> >Africa didn't know that there was any other option, so I don't think
> >that autarky is really an apt word for their condition before they
> >encountered foreigners from Europe and Arabia.
>
> Yes, it's a moot point.
>
> But in societies in which most people are subsistence farmers or
herdsmen=
,
> trade is mainly in luxury items, not the basic necessities of life.
>
In Africa, it seems that trade started with the sale of slaves to
Arabs, as you say, this was in return for luxury goods. Wikipaedia has
this:
David Livingstone wrote of the slave trade:
"To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility.... We passed a slave
woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path.
[Onlookers] said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in
anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable
to walk any longer. We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and
dead.... We came upon a man dead from starvation.... The strangest
disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken
heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made
slaves."
>
> People could make clothes from animal skins locally, without sup****ting
t=
he
> cotton mills of Manchester and dozens of middle-men along the way.
>
> In hunting societies, however, the firearms of Birmingham and the knives
=
of
> Sheffield were a far bigger attraction than Manchester goods.
>
=46rom the above, I think it can be assumed that trade started before
Manchester and Birmingham were involved - it probably started in Roman
times with the slave trade then, but, in recent times, it seems to
date from the Barbary pirates.
>
> As mass-produced articles they were able to undercut the local products,
=
so
> naturally the Poms were all for free trade. Every year, at a certain
seas=
on,
> Ovambo blacksmiths would travel south and sell their iron goods --
knives=
,
> axes and the like. The industry was killed by the products of Sheffield
a=
nd
> Birmingham -- which were usually exchanged for elephants' teeth -- and
of
> course Birmingham guns could kill many more elephants more quickly than
t=
he
> locally-produced hunting gear.
>
> But these products were not distributed out of altruism, as the piece
pos=
ted
> by "Topaz" implies. They made fat profits all along the line.
>
And, of course, this exploitation of Africa by the 'West' continues.
The EU is the modern imperial power that sets the price and terms of
trade for African commodities.
Plus ca change...
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