"In the 21st century, widgets are guns. In the 19th century—with due respect to those involved, who were people, not things—widgets were slaves. To be sure, the issues are not entirely comparable. Although guns kill more than 30,000 Americans a year, according to the CDC, they are not doing the harm that slavery did. But, while we all agree now that slavery was evil, we violently disagree about guns. The history of the two issues has many parallels, and points to the terrible difficulty of reaching a consensus...." DK
While I would agree that slavery is suboptimal as a class category, I would not go so far as to claim that we all now agree that it was evil back then. We now think of it as having been evil, which is a misconception of history really in my view.
If you look at the history of it, some important Muslim states did not abjure it until I believe 1960, and they are even now considering bringing it back.
For billions, life now in greater poverty and degradation than the lot of slaves in America, while unfortunate, is not an evil, either.
Nor is it something which Americans should think themselves anointed somehow to eradicate.
Moreover, although there is a lot of misunderstanding about this, it is not a goal of market capitalism, or liberal capitalism, or of cartel capitalism, or of monopoly capitalism, to reduce poverty. The goal of these institutions is merely to increase profit and invested wealth (private property interests).
Re property rights, stamping out 'global poverty' (lack of property), in practice, means mainly transferring Americans', and other wealthy entities', private property to them in various ways. Many billionaires are now doing just that.
Ultimately, it will fuel a further clash of civilizations already well under way.
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