This begs the question: given that Baptist’s claim, and similar claims made by other historians, is so clearly not supported by the evidence, how come they have been so well received by many other historians and in the media? The answer is pretty obvious: both history departments and the media are dominated by liberals and that the wealth of the US is the product of slavery is exactly what American liberals want to hear, so they will accept that kind of claims uncritically no matter how implausible they are. What makes that even more absurd is that, as Olmstead and Rhode note, the fact that slavery wasn’t necessary for the industrial revolution to happen only makes it worse: had it really been essential to the development of capitalism in the West, one could at least have said that something good came out of slavery, because the development of capitalism in the West was undoubtedly one of the best things that ever happened. (Of course, that’s another thing liberals are prone to deny, but that’s because they don’t read enough economic history . See also my post on Oxfam’s misleading report on this.)