Didn’t slaves build the pyramids? Was there capitalism then?
Have you read Sapiens by Harari? It touches on the fact that the Neanderthals and other species of humans died out ... perhaps due to genocide perpetrated by Homo sapiens, prior to the advent of capitalism by any measure.
That is trivially false, but I think that he means that the "Atlantic Slave trade" is a) a notable recent occurrence of mass Race based slavery, and b) a capitalistic industry.
As best as I can tell, it happened within the past 800 years or so.
> Didn’t slaves build the pyramids? Was there capitalism then?
Nobody really knows. But certainly it wasn't race based slaves. There is a difference between old world slavery - I conquer you and you become slaves regardless of race vs you are slaves because you are black, asian, native, etc. Tragically, slavery was common in the past but it was "race-blind".
> Have you read Sapiens by Harari?
I watched his talks - which are interesting, but like all mass produced "pop" history, it's really not that accurate.
> It touches on the fact that the Neanderthals and other species of humans died out ... perhaps due to genocide perpetrated by Homo sapiens, prior to the advent of capitalism by any measure.
Sure, they died out most likely due to being outcompeted. But once again, being outcompeted for resources is different than modern extermination campaigns where one was simply killed for being native, aborigine, jewish, etc. Where even without any competition for resources, the native americans, aborigines, jews, etc were killed simply for being native american, aborigines, jews, etc.
> I conquer you and you become slaves regardless of race
"you" in this sense means tribe / village / kingdom. In ancient times this is not unconnected with race. It is likely an ethnic group with it's own language, customs, shibboleths etc.
Didn’t slaves build the pyramids? Was there capitalism then?
Have you read Sapiens by Harari? It touches on the fact that the Neanderthals and other species of humans died out ... perhaps due to genocide perpetrated by Homo sapiens, prior to the advent of capitalism by any measure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapiens:_A_Brief_History_of_...