What is a demonstration?

Suppose someone claims:

Free labor benefited industrial capitalism.

Mere assertion

Factories needed free workers.

No evidence.

No reasoning.

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Rhetorical statement

Freedom unleashed the engines of progress.

This sounds impressive,

but it does not prove anything.

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Demonstration

1. Laws created legally free labor.
2. Workers could enter contracts without requiring a feudal lord's or slave owner's legal control.
3. Contemporary records show expanding industries increasingly relied on wage labor recruited through contracts.
4. Therefore, legally free labor facilitated the operation and expansion of industrial capitalism.

Here each step is supported by evidence and connected by reasoning.

That is what scholars mean by a demonstration.