When did I ever mention liberalism?
Politically speaking, I am a state socialist.
The economic factors which drove the things I listed still exist. It would be far more profitable for companies and individuals to use slave labour, and to invade countries and steal their natural resources. The reasons we don't do this are moral rather than economic.
Maybe I have misunderstood you, but I have read your last post as "It was okay to invade a country and enslave the people there 150 years ago, because it allowed the enslavers to make money"
Imperialism is a natural part of history and it was generally a very healthy and very good phenomenon; it is a civilizing force and a force that has changed the world for the positive.
The reason why slavery disappeared in the 19th century in most nations is because of technological advancements that made it obsolete.
It would have been impossible to have effectively lived without the institution of slavery and be 'civilized' due to the lack of ability to harvest natural resources for such a long time.
The advent of the cotton gin and the advanced farming tactics made it so that we could have large farming operations without slaves.
Slavery probably saved millions of people throughout history -- after periods of war, people could be put to use as slaves and could be monitored to not be as great of a threat before and thus their lives could be spared for the stability of the nation who enslaved them.
During times of famine and hardship people could sell themselves in order to survive as opposed to simply being left to perish.
When there was a shortage of human being and a lot of labor necessary to be performed, slaves were used as were indentured servants and other similar forms.
Slavery, sefdom, etc. were all necessary transitional phases economically. If these systems had not existed we'd probably still be nomadic tribes; if serfdom did not exist, the protection of communities could never have been guaranteed as there would not be professional soldiers to protect communities funded by Lords and the likes.
Nonsense. Slavery was still quite vital to the south's economy, otherwise they would not have fought so hard and tried to secede to maintain it. Not having slaves became better when the cost of the war became greater than the cost of not having them. Call that economics if you want, but without the abolitionists and the war, the economics wouldn't have changed.
They would have eventually changed -- just as the advances of military technology made Serfdom obsolete, eventually other technological advances such as the cotton gin would have made slaves less and less relevant.
As for women getting the vote... how is that in any way tied to the economy?
Education was not always free nor was it always in-depth; voting was reserved for educated, property owning males.. And well, at that time with few exceptions the only people who were both educated and property owning were of course males.
Extending a right for women to vote in 1789 with the ratification of our Constitution would have been effectually giving the vote to
all Americans, who were by and large uneducated. It would have been viewed as irrational by the founding fathers -- instead of an educated voting populace it would be giving a cleverly crafted Republic into the hands of uneducated people who would be likely to vote themselves money from the government and warp the fundamental essence of our democracy.
Women were second-class citizens due to the delineations of labor -- having lower upper body strength, less endurance in physical labor, etc. made their economic roles different; they were pigeonholed to the role of housewife and thus were not educated to the standards that people would approve of for having a vote.
As education was able to spread and the middle class grew it became more apparent there were many women who were educated and should certainly share in the right.
Of course, money is always a factor, but when it comes to social movements based on civil liberties, it is not the important one. It is nearly always advantageous for the people in power to make sure the helpless and voiceless stay that way. In older cultures, they were usually successful. In the twentieth century, they have largely failed*, and that is, in fact, thanks to the liberals. I.E., people who believe that everyone should have a right to life, liberty, equality, etc., and were willing to do what it took to secure that.
*In the United States, Canada, Australia, and parts of Europe. But we're working on the rest.
that is why liberals should love guns, advanced farming techniques and imperialism.
Without any of the above three the world would still be run by an elite who controlled the land and organized what existing militaries that existed.
The only reason why today there are Chinese women carving out successful futures everywhere from Boston to Busan is because European imperialists conquered the world and bent everyone to their will.
If they would have stayed in Europe, they probably would not have advanced as rapidly and we'd probably have the world looking like early 19th century Europe and the rest of it still in some form of feudal stagnation, and the Japanese ruling substantial chunks of Korea and China under iron fists imposing racist policies while black Africans would be being widely enslaved by the Arab world while Europeans shrugged their shoulders, having no real use for black slaves.
