Slavery's economics: from the Civil War to Congo's cobalt mines

Forced labor lasts as long as it pays, and it is hidden from the people who profit from it. That pattern runs through three conversations, from the American Civil War to the hand-dug cobalt mines of Congo. Following the money does not explain everything, and the sources disagree about how much credit belongs to conscience and how much to power, but it explains why exploitation is so hard to end and keeps returning in new forms.

Civil War historian Gary Gallagher argues that slavery caused the war because it was thriving, not dying. The 1860 census valued enslaved people at about $3 billion, while all industries and railroads together were worth under $2.5 billion. "So it was the most valuable industry in the United States." The flashpoint was not abolition, the cause of a small minority, but the Republican promise to block slavery's spread, which white Southerners read as a threat to their most valuable property. Enslaved labor also let the Confederacy put 85 to 90 percent of its white military-age men in uniform. He adds a caveat: slavery caused the war, but most Union soldiers fought for the Union, not emancipation.

Siddharth Kara traces a line from the Atlantic slave trade, which he says gave birth to modern finance, banking and insurance, to Congo today. In the Zorg case, a crew threw 130 to 140 Africans overboard and the owner filed an insurance claim for lost cargo. Britain's 1833 abolition came only after slave owners were paid £20 million. In Congo, his report estimates at least 300,000 people dig for cobalt by hand, about 37 percent in conditions he calls absolute slavery and nearly 10 percent children. That cobalt flows into the supply chain for phones, electric cars and AI data centers. "We can't save our piece of the planet by destroying their piece of the planet," he says. His figures are estimates from a single report.

Darryl Cooper adds the structural view. The Atlantic trade was a game-theory trap: a ruler who refused to take part would be overpowered by one who did. It ended only when Britain was strong enough to enforce abolition at sea.

They agree forced labor was an economic core and that it changes shape instead of vanishing. They differ on what ends it. Kara stresses acts of conscience, Cooper stresses power, and Gallagher points to war. These fit together, since conscience started the fight and power finished it.

What to do with it: when someone says an exploitative system was dying out, check what it was worth. Separate what caused a conflict from why people joined it. Keep your devices longer. Do not assume a new battery chemistry solves the problem, and ask where the material comes from. Hold companies to cleaning up, not only leaving. Ask who will enforce a reform, and watch for exploitation that survives under a new name.