Friday 2 October 2015

black comedy gold



i hear it cost cameron over 400 million quid - in caribbean infrastructure, health, and economic aid-packages - to get off the island of jamaica - the stupid, whatless cunt.

indeed, it appears the criminally complacent british government is beginning to get rather worried about countries from the far-east who are gazumping the uk's commercial and political influence in the caricom region; china's exim bank has committed itself to investing a possible 10 billion dollars in jamaica's special economic zones and industrial parks, whilst japan is offering to assist jamaica with the development of energy-efficiency and renewable-energy technology, and is also funding the institute of jamaica to the tune of about £40 million in grants.

in 1837, the british government spent £20 million in hand-outs - the equivalent of nearly £2 billion in today's money - when, in a corruptly stitched-up deal to abolish the previously state-promoted practice of slavery, it notoriously voted to buy off british slave-owners, yet, in comparison with the astronomical profits made by british merchants from slave-trading and from slave-labour, and in comparison with the additional multi-millions collected from the imposition of british taxes on slave-manufactured goods from the caribbean colonies, this figure is but a tiny drop-in-the-ocean of spilt african blood - african blood forcibly invested in the lucrative caribbean plantation business.

in contemporary terms, £2 billion represents just loose-change for the british government, which over the next few years, will i-dare-say spend a very similar sum attempting to buy-off, and curry commercial favour with, obdurate caribbean administrations - nevertheless, these payments can in no way be considered commensurate with slavery-reparation payments, which prime-minister cameron disrespectfully and summarily dismisses out-of-hand.

according to my own extremely rough, back-of-an-envelope calculations, the uk's current liability for slavery-reparations might fairly be assessed as follows:

given that, in 1770, west-indian planting-profits can be estimated at £2.5 million pounds, british profits from trading to the west-indies can be estimated at around £1.3 million, and annual british slave-trading-profits can be estimated at a minimum of £1 million - making a total annual british slave-based industry-profit of £4.8 million - one can easily surmise that, during, say, the 135-year period between 1672 - when the slave-trade was formalized, under a royal charter, by the establishment of the royal african company - and 1807 - when the slave-trade was abolished - british slave-based industries could well have raked in total-profits of about £648 million, a sum which, held in 1751, say - when the british slave-based industry was reaching full-steam - would have amounted to the present-day monetary equivalent of approximately £120 billion.

however, this current-day-conversion figure of £120 billion does not take into account slave-based profits accrued from the beginning of the english slave-based industry in 1562, during the reign of elizabeth i - when captain john hawkins made the first of three slaving-voyages to africa, and captured over 1200 africans who were then sold as goods in the spanish colonies of the americas - nor does it include slave-based profits accrued between 1625 - when barbados became the first english plantation-settlement in the caribbean - and 1672 - when the slave-trade was formalized, under a royal charter, by the establishment of the royal african company - nor does it include slave-based profits accrued between 1807 - the abolition-date of the slave-trade - and 1834 - the abolition-date, in the british empire, of slavery itself - and indeed, nor does it include profits accrued from caribbean plantations right up until the end of the british colonial period, during the latter half of the 20th century - and therefore in many ways, this afore-mentioned estimate of £120 billion could conceivably be construed as somewhat conservative.

of course, there is an alternative, strictly commercial, method of calculating britain's current liability for slavery-reparations - but then slavery was, in fact, strictly business, wasn't it?

you see, assuming the present-day british economy to be worth roughly £2 trillion annually, and the profit-value of british slave-based industries to constitute, say, at most, 5% of the british economy during any given year of the 1760-1830 industrial revolution, it would therefore follow that, in order to clear the slate with the afro-caribbean community, and to equitably recognize this community's proportional and cumulative historic contribution to our thriving modern-day economy, the british government would actually have to fork out £100 billion in slavery-reparations for the next 70 years - or pay a one-off lump-sum to the descendants of african-slaves amounting to £7 trillion.

however, this alternative current-day-conversion figure of £7 trillion does not take into account slave-based profits accrued from the beginning of the english slaved-based industry in 1562, during the reign of elizabeth i - when captain john hawkins made the first of three slaving-voyages to africa, and captured over 1200 africans who were then sold as goods in the spanish colonies of the americas - nor does it include slave-based profits accrued between 1625 - when barbados became the first english plantation-settlement in the caribbean - and 1760 - the advent of the industrial revolution - nor does it include slave-based profits accrued between 1830 - the conclusion of the industrial revolution - and 1834 - the date of slavery's abolition in the british empire - and indeed, nor does it include profits accrued from caribbean plantations right up until the end of the british colonial period, during the latter half of the 20th century - and therefore in many ways, this afore-mentioned estimate of £7 trillion could conceivably be construed as somewhat conservative.

of course, the - minimum - £7 trillion current-day-conversion-figure for slavery-reparations, to which i have heretofore referred, is purely hypothetical, nay negotiable, and in light of the fact that our modern economy is majorly reliant upon the sale and manufacture of various diabolic armaments, and other hideous weapons of mass-destruction, it is quite possible that, due to insuppressible religious considerations, the coalition of rastafari movement groups - which in 2004 itself lodged a reasonably substantial claim of £72.5 billion for slavery-reparations - might, in the given present circumstances, perhaps not wish to accept absolutely the entire available sum, as duly calculated by myself - not that i am in any manner of position to make judgment, obviously.

now, it must be be borne in mind that the corrupt nature of government-to-government-administrated reparation-schemes inevitably tends to precipitate the massive procurement of destructive military hardware by even the smallest of claimant-states - which may subsequently evolve into obnoxious, repressive, regional bully-boys - and, to be fair, therefore, there should be considered a variegated multitude of alternative means by which slavery-reparations, and compensation for colonialism, might judiciously be effected - via the foundation of a so-called 'commonwealth', for example, whereby all citizens of said 'commonwealth' might, by historical right, enjoy the freedom to reside in the former colonial 'mother-country' of great britain, wherein they might further enjoy all the normal benefits and conditions of said residence strictly in common with the indigenous citizens of great britain themselves.

moreover, all descendants of british-owned slaves, regardless of colour, class, creed, or current circumstance, should be awarded the automatic freedom of access to an incorruptible british justice-system invested with the statutory power to recover - whether this be from individuals, institutions or corporations - the criminally acquired slave-produced wealth which rightfully and inherently belongs to them - for indeed, any justice-system which fails to deliver such required retrospective reparation cannot ever lawfully be deemed a true system of justice.


sources:

enslavement and industrialisation - by robin blackburn

the abolition project - east of england broadband network and mla east of england

atlantic slave trade - wikipedia

economy of the united kingdom - wikipedia

historical uk inflation and price conversion - stephen morley


5 comments:

bellas bush gâteau said...

this all sniffs of a sneaky political smokescreen to me - i bet before you can say, "rare earth minerals", cameron, abe and jinping will all be fracking away frantically together in dunn's river falls...

...and by the time the world's manic mining companies have finished drilling holes into jamaica's sub-strata, the island will probably have begun to sink, slowly, and inexorably, beneath the waves of the once beautiful, blue, caribbean, sea.

spark up said...

i'm often criticized for proposing an open-door immigration-policy in the uk, especially by captain mainwarding and the home grumble over at the slog, who believe that national immigration quotas should be based upon the land-area-size of a country, as opposed to being, more justly, predicated upon the relative tonnage of bombs a given country has dropped upon the region from where the migrants, through no fault of their own, are fleeing.

in my opinion, open-door immigration policies would prove an effective counter-balance to barbaric politicians who believe in their divine-right to murder, in a pseudo-humanitarian cause, citizens of states less wealthy and less white than themselves.

however, i do not support the radical left-wing activists who encourage desperate migrants to risk their own lives travelling to europe and britain in criminally unsafe sea-vessels, and through exceedingly hazardous railway-tunnels, purely in order that the cocktail-socialist-cabal may score cheap political points against the conservatives, from the comfort of their own trendily-furnished living-rooms - as it's always the desperate, fleeing migrants who land-up paying the highest possible price for this selfish middle-class exhibition of faux political consciousness.

demo-dick said...

@bellas bush gâteau

sounds like a dastardly plan to dismantle jamaica rock-by-obtrusive-rock.

dirty ole gold-digger -v- clean water-supply and sanitation said...

the £300 million infrastructure package, which was granted to the jamaican government by prime-miner cameron, is simply a bribe to soften up the jamaican people for an extensive programme of ecologically and socially destructive mineral-extraction activities...

...however, if the jamaicans had by now been granted due reparations for slavery, they would not feel under such intense financial pressure to agree the signing of commercial mining-contracts with avaricious foreign multi-nationals, whose business methods could potentially prove to be devastating for the environment and communities...

...of course, decisions concerning the viability and legitimacy of commercial mineral extraction are - in theory - for the jamaican people to make, not comfortably-off green-bloggers in europe...

...and the new roads on the island will be a welcome god-send, if adequately policed and signed to ensure safe-use - not-to-mention very handy for the long, winding queues of giant tipper-trucks which will soon be transporting mineral-ores the length and breadth of tourist-paradise...

in the name of democracy said...

history tells us that neo-colonial nobheads like cameron never say "sorry", they just carry on raping, pillaging, murdering, enslaving and looting, until one-day an even bigger, badder, more barbaric global-bully comes along to display his predecessors' indifferent, severed countenances, raised upon pikes, along westminster bridge.