Compensated Abolition as Policy Template

Britain abolished slavery by paying roughly 5% of GDP to slaveowners in 1833 and sustaining costly naval patrols that captured 1,600 ships but only modestly cut supply until Brazil outlawed the trade in 1850. Votes and deployments show moral commitment, not material interest, kept the campaign going. The mix—paying incumbents plus targeted enforcement and demand-side law—provides a pragmatic model for dismantling harmful systems. — It suggests today’s reforms (e.g., fossil-fuel phaseouts, gun buybacks, NIMBY rollback) may require compensating losers and pairing supply crackdowns with demand-side legal shifts to achieve peaceful, durable change.