Christopher Brown

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1,098 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 20 Jan

Christopher Brown’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.

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80,000 Hours Podcast · #145 Classic episode – Christopher Brown on why slavery abolition wasn't inevitable · 20 Jan 2026 podcast

I'm no expert on Roman civilization, but my suspicion is that there was no wealthier and increasingly more secular world with the kinds of cultural expression that you're talking about.

Certainly there was no... And that was one of the largest slaveholding society that had probably existed in the world to that point.

So I just think that's...

I think I'd go even further and say it's wishful thinking.

I don't think there is a real tie.

And I also think even more that it's tied to a notion, as far as I can tell, that wealth in one place, in one way or another, redounds to the wealth of others in other places.

And I just don't, I just don't, I mean, it's, I don't think that that's necessarily true.

You know, we have enough in the last century and a half to know.

I mean, I think the other thing you might think about is like sort of the age of high imperialism.

in Britain, France, Germany, late 19th, early 20th century, were extraordinary concentrations of wealth, were dependent upon the oppression, the colonialism throughout sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, South Asia.

And the artistic production, the creativity of

Belle Epoque, France, Edwardian England.

I mean, I just, I don't, there are too many examples of the ways in which wealth has been built on and then contributed to the exploitation and immiseration of other people that I just, I have a hard time accepting that as a linkage.

Generalization, yeah.

If you wanted to run this argument, and it's not something that I really believe in, but if you wanted to run this argument, you would make a case that it's the middling classes.

It's the bourgeoisie.

It's where the energy for these kinds of movements emerge.

You know, I do think that there is a degree of... Class warfare is not quite the right word for it, but there is a fair amount of resentment of the kind of wealth and power that slaveholders enjoy because they own slaves.

And most of the constituency...

at the broader level is for those who are wealthy enough to be engaged in politics, but not wealthy enough to own slaves.

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