Not Made by Slaves : Ethical Capitalism in the Age of Abolition

With these words inscribed on a sugar bowl, nineteenth-century consumers were reminded of their power to change the global economy. Determined to strike at the heart of the slave trade, abolitionist businesses throughout the Atlantic used new ideas of supply and demand, consumer credit, and branding to make the case for ethical capitalism.

Consumers became the moral compass of capitalism as companies in West Africa, including Macaulay & Babington and Brown & Ives, developed clever new tactics to make "legitimate" commerce pay. Yet ethical trade was not without its problems. The search for goods "not made by slaves" unwittingly expanded the reach of colonial enterprises in the relentless pursuit of cheap labor.

Not Made by Slaves captures the moral dilemmas roiling the early years of global consumer society and is a stark reminder of the unintended consequences of relying on consumer self-interest to transform global capitalism.