The very concept of raw material has deep colonial roots. Raw, in this context, means available for exploitation without resistance rather than a substance that needs no processing. The natural environment itself first had to be reconstructed so that it became available for value extraction. Then, through the practice of slavery (which preceded colonialism but which reached a massive scale under colonialism), human bodies were transformed into a raw material for capitalism in the form of slaves. Historians have warned us against treating slavery—usually imagined as a premodern practice—in isolation from the development of industrial capitalism. The plantation and the factory coexisted for a long time. The treatment of human beings as mere property stimulated the rationalities of profit maximization, accounting precision, and data optimization that we now tend to associate with modern rationality.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 43