Capitalism & Slavery: The Truth They Don’t Teach You
with Historian David McNally & Oklahoma State Rep. Michelle McCane
What if capitalism didn’t replace slavery, what if it scaled it?
This talk uncovers how plantation slavery powered global capitalism and how austerity and militarism keep exploitation alive today. Economist David McNally, Clara Mattei, and Rep. Michelle McCane reveal why the system is rotten at its core, and why freedom has always been won from below, not gifted from above.
Who really Freed the Slaves?
Pulling from the research he did for his latest book Slavery and Capitalism: A New Marxist View (University of California Press, 2025), Prof. David McNally explained how enslaved people freed themselves, forcing emancipation by making it a fact on the ground; shattering the myth of “freedom from above” and reminds us that real change has always been won from below.
Chains have been replaced by bills. When food, care, and shelter all come with a price tag, we have no choice but to sell our capacity to work to survive.
But a paycheck never matches a full day. We give more than we get back. That extra, the surplus we create, is taken as profit, and the foundation of the accumulation of wealth in this system. Our days are consumed by rent, debt, and wages that never seem to stretch.
Power protects itself.
Once leaders step into office, the system rewards them for keeping things the same. As Rep. Michelle McCane makes clear: change will never come from the top. It only comes when ordinary people organize, push, and demand it.
“Lawmakers would rather criminalize shopping cart theft than address poverty.”
They cut public schools even as decades of white flight drained resources. Then they point to the hollowing-out as the excuse for more cuts.
Pressure has to come from below, from people showing up, paying attention, refusing to be silent.