1767: Sir James Steuart published an inquiry into political economy arguing that slavery was a necessary historical stage to compel mankind to labor beyond t…

1767: Sir James Steuart published an inquiry into political economy arguing that slavery was a necessary historical stage to compel mankind to labor beyond their immediate wants. He claimed that because people with few needs would otherwise only work for themselves, slavery was essential for the multiplication of the world’s population. Steuart’s theories suggested that in earlier times, slavery served the same function in peopling the globe that trade and industry performed in the eighteenth century. This perspective represents one of the formal economic justifications used to normalize coerced labor within the British Atlantic system.