Reflections on the Slave Trade, Chapter 15

Every person on this planet has a desire to be free.

Freedom is about having a choice.

As citizens of the planet Earth, we need to cherish that gift—and not take it for granted. After reading of the slavery stories around the globe, I know that if you're born in the United States in the 21st Century, you're of  the luckiest people in the world. Take your good fortune and lift your life to its highest calling. Understand that the right to choose your own path is a blessing and a privilege. Don't be afraid to own your freedom. Imagine your possibility.

As for possibility, I wonder what would have happened in Africa if the slave trade didn't happen? We know from the textbook that, "Scholars have estimated that sub-Saharan Africa represented about 18 percent of the world's population in 1600, but only 6 percent in 1900." What possibilities for Africa were lost due to losing this large amount of people? Furthermore, what gain did migrating these people have to the world's of Europe, China, and the America's?

 Our whole economy and social systems are designed for a growing economy, and a growing population.  Without future growth, savings and investment become more necessary, but less attractive.  Without growth, people become less generous towards strangers and more unhappy about their own circumstances. And without the growth around which all of our modern welfare states have been structured, the modern safety nets that governments have spent the last century establishing may not be politically or economically sustainable.

In America, we grew and set up a system by importing human capital for hundreds of years. This created tremendous innovation and capital and a head-start that almost no other country had. As a result our society was transformed into one of the most successful in history, while African societies were destroyed, decimated, and in some cases erased.   

We have tremendous freedoms in America. What will America do next to protect these freedoms? What might be destroyed in order to keep these freedoms, these luxuries,  this security?