Speaker
Description
In 2020, the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group proposed the removal of a series of monuments dedicated to distinguished Scottish personalities who allegedly supported colonialism and slavery. At first, Adam Smith was included in the list because of his alleged proposal “to moderate slavery and improve its profitability with wages”.
Actually, Smith was a well-known opponent of both colonialism and slave labour on plantations. He considered the slave labour was at the root of two negative aspects: the low level of labour productivity and the higher production costs of exotic goods, the high price of which was charged to consumers in the mother country.
Nowadays, albeit in different forms, slavery is still a widespread phenomenon in agriculture. If Smith, today, would confirm the continuing low productivity of slave labour, he would probably update his thoughts on the definition of ‘exotic’ goods and the high level of their prices. In the globalised economy, even though so-called exotic goods have become usual consumer goods, their systems of production are often based on the use of slave labour. The intensive exploitation of this type of labour, the avoidance of safety and security measures for workers, on the one hand, and the circumvention of environmental and community constraints, on the other, allow production costs to be kept low, triggering unfair forms of competition.
| Organization | University of Salento |
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