Tea at Trianon: Countries With the Most Slaves

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Countries With the Most Slaves

From Inverse:

The Global Slavery Index estimates the prevalence of slavery based on more than 50,000 interviews in 53 different languages. If there’s one positive takeaway from the study, it’s that the relative number of people in slavery is at an all-time low. Yet perhaps most shocking is the simple fact that there are 46 million slaves in the world, generating $150 billion in criminal profits. Bales tells Inverse that the definition of slavery is pretty simple: “It’s always about one person completely controlling another person — and using violence to maintain control — with the ultimate aim of exploitation in some way.” Slavery includes not only forced labor but also human trafficking, many sex workers, and various kinds of exploitative relationships. Some kinds of slavery are found in developed countries, even the U.S., which has an estimated 58,000 slaves. But other countries are much worse, with 58 percent of all slaves living in only five countries. We highlight the worst offenders, and what it’s like there, below. (Read more.)