Did the free market and industrialization end American slavery? (deaths, racist, Alabama)
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While it is a commonly help view that capitalism only persist on cheap labor, one must also look at how things are produced to get a better idea of the motivations of capitalist. Back when the USA economy was primarily focused on agriculture, slavery actually would have made good business sense. Paying each farm hand would have been prohibitively expensive, and as a result slave labor insured a 1 time payment to get several decades of work.
However things changed with automation and the industrial revolution. Because now machinary could now produce faster than a human being, it appears that the initial investment was better spent on machinary and not slaves. Slavery had to have been prohibitely expensive compared to automation solutions at the time. Let's look at why slavery probably became expensive...
You had to have slaves who were field hands. But you also had to make sure they were fed (a big expense), clothed (not too expensive, but an expense nontheless) and that they were in good and healthy shake (also expensive). Cradle to the slave enslavement could not have possibly have remained a sustainable model. When compared to technological advancements at the time, slavery basically became obsolete.
With the North pretty much taking the lead in the manufacturing game, they really had no need for slavery at the time either. And the south could not compete with the rampant growth in the North. It's highly doubtful that even withot the civial war, many southern farmers would have just went bankrupt anyway, freeing the slaves anyway.
It is my firm opinion that because America is now at war with capitalism, and most of the people in power does not want capitalism shown in a possible light. But when you think about it, whether you like it or not, capitalism killed slavery in America. We can always give it to the civil war, but we all know America isn't kind enough to just end something that was making money. The reality is probably that there was no money in slavery anymore, and was just officially put out of it's misery.
Since the North was a capitalist, industrial economy and since the superior economy of the North had everything to do with the Union victory, I guess you could say that "capitalism killed slavery". The southern planter class weren't about to give up their slaves even with the writing of the industrial revolution on the wall, however. It took 600K deaths and years of the most total warfare the world had known up to that point to break the will of Southern society. They wanted their slaves. Good arguments can be made to the effect that this was more about many things other than economic rationality, but slice it how you will--their slaves were taken from them by force.
Since the North was a capitalist, industrial economy and since the superior economy of the North had everything to do with the Union victory, I guess you could say that "capitalism killed slavery". The southern planter class weren't about to give up their slaves even with the writing of the industrial revolution on the wall, however. It took 600K deaths and years of the most total warfare the world had known up to that point to break the will of Southern society. They wanted their slaves. Good arguments can be made to the effect that this was more about many things other than economic rationality, but slice it how you will--their slaves were taken from them by force.
Yes, and if the southerns did keep their slaves, how long would have been before they would have went bankrupt? There is just no way they could have dealt with the cost needed to run big farms manually, especially with manufacturing in an upswing. I almost wish there was no Civil War, that way Abe Lincoln wouldn't be a hero, and capitalism itself would have been the hero.
The cotton South is best regarded as a colony supplying raw materials to the manufacturing base in the mother country. It just happened to be on the same continent, right next door. Same lack of infrastructure, same poverty, same small, wealthy oligarchy with close ties to merchants and manufacturers in the metropole. It's not un-capitalist to use a oppressed labor force to deliver cheap raw materials...that's what they were doing in the Congo (rubber) and Chile (copper) well into the 20th century. And it's not like mechanized farming methods exactly revolutionized the South after the Civil War. Look into the history of sharecropping---no good example of agricultural innovation there. The grain growing states of the Plains were the big benificiaries of ag technology in the Gilded Age...the same places that voted Republican and fought for the Union.
There's alot more to slavery than an economic choice to not pay your labor force. The entire culture of the south was built around the social relations of slavery. Progressive business journalists in the South were tearing out their hair decades after the Civil War at the stubborn refusal of southern landowners to modernize.
I would argue that industrialization actually prolonged slavery and made the Civil War more difficult to win.
If Eli Whitney's cotton gin had never been invented, the only cotton that was useable was sea island cotton which did not prosper in what became the "Cotton" states. Slavery in the "Old" South (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Kentucky), was dying a natural death, it just wasn't as cost effective as it had been. But in Mississippi, and Alabama, and Louisiana and parts of Tennessee, the varieties of cotton which were made profitable via the Cotton Gin, flourished, and became what was arguably the highest value export crop in North America.
This led to two disparate, but very important issues. Growing cotton was very labor intensive, and the labor is hot dirty and uncomfortable, more so, in many cases than the factory, mine, and rail road jobs that absorbed much of the unwanted and looked down upon immigrants from Europe (se the Know Nothing Party, or "no Irish need apply").
Also, due to the fact that Sothern Planters had export goods to sell they developed closer ties to their buyers, Certainly some of the crop went to New England textile mills but it also went to mills in Great Britain and France. These economic, social and business ties made it problematic for the Union to complete impose a blockade on the Confederacy.
Yes, and if the southerns did keep their slaves, how long would have been before they would have went bankrupt? There is just no way they could have dealt with the cost needed to run big farms manually, especially with manufacturing in an upswing. I almost wish there was no Civil War, that way Abe Lincoln wouldn't be a hero, and capitalism itself would have been the hero.
Slaves weren't just about profits. Slaves were also a status symbol and a sign of affluence for the one percenters who controlled the big plantations. They were on their neo-feudalist aristocratic kick, and they wanted all the trappings of the old nobility classes of olden days. Slave labor in the South was notoriously inefficient and unproductive relative to returns. But the aristocrats didn't care. They wanted their wives to live like European baronesses in glorious mansions to keep up appearances, and for their children to have courtiers and maids to meet their every desire. It was the "gentile life". That's what the antebellum period was all about.
Slaves weren't just about profits. Slaves were also a status symbol and a sign of affluence for the one percenters who controlled the big plantations. They were on their neo-feudalist aristocratic kick, and they wanted all the trappings of the old nobility classes of olden days. Slave labor in the South was notoriously inefficient and unproductive relative to returns. But the aristocrats didn't care. They wanted their wives to live like European baronesses in glorious mansions to keep up appearances, and for their children to have courtiers and maids to meet their every desire. It was the "gentile life". That's what the antebellum period was all about.
Well I don't deny that slave owners in the south were racist. So yes I'm sure they would have wanted to keep their slaves for reasons not soley related to money. However like with anything, living above your means is a recipe for failure. For example, I would LOVE to drive an SL600 Mercedes, but unfortunately my production and my income just won't permit it. And the same applies to wealthy slave owners. If they are producing less, and bringing in less money, no matter how much they want to keep their slaves, they simply wouldn't be able to. They just can't sustain the cost to keep the slaves around. So they would have just bankrupted themselves and the slaves would have been freed anyway.
It is worth noting that sharecropping did sprout up after slavery was abolished. A lot of the workers on the plantation were locked into a pretty stupid quota system. My grandparents on both sides of my family grew up on sharecropping plantations. But of course sharecropping could never be slavery. My family was able to leave the sharecropping plantation in the 40s due to my great grandfather finding a job in the city. So while it structurally looked kind of like slavery, the inclusion of choice kind of made it fall flat on it's face.
Well I don't deny that slave owners in the south were racist. So yes I'm sure they would have wanted to keep their slaves for reasons not soley related to money. However like with anything, living above your means is a recipe for failure. For example, I would LOVE to drive an SL600 Mercedes, but unfortunately my production and my income just won't permit it. And the same applies to wealthy slave owners. If they are producing less, and bringing in less money, no matter how much they want to keep their slaves, they simply wouldn't be able to. They just can't sustain the cost to keep the slaves around. So they would have just bankrupted themselves and the slaves would have been freed anyway.
It is worth noting that sharecropping did sprout up after slavery was abolished. A lot of the workers on the plantation were locked into a pretty stupid quota system. My grandparents on both sides of my family grew up on sharecropping plantations. But of course sharecropping could never be slavery. My family was able to leave the sharecropping plantation in the 40s due to my great grandfather finding a job in the city. So while it structurally looked kind of like slavery, the inclusion of choice kind of made it fall flat on it's face.
Sure. The racial injustice angle is a given fact, but I'm not trying to deal with that. I'm merely discussing what I feel were the delusional incentive traps of the Southern one percenters: the fight to preserve a feudal aristocracy rooted in the exploitation of captive human labor for non-viable vanity reasons, over and above the mistaken economic calculations. It was doomed from the start.
The economy is always shifting just as it is now. At one time the same was said abut family farming when most worked on them. Those who shift with the needs do well those that don't; do not as always.
Yes, and if the southerns did keep their slaves, how long would have been before they would have went bankrupt? There is just no way they could have dealt with the cost needed to run big farms manually, especially with manufacturing in an upswing. I almost wish there was no Civil War, that way Abe Lincoln wouldn't be a hero, and capitalism itself would have been the hero.
The problem is the south were and still are trapt in the ways of the grandfathers and adverse to change whether it was economic or social changes. In the 1850's and 60's, the landowners wanted to continue slavery rather than become industrialized. In the 1950's and 60's, the white southerns wanted to continue segregation because they didn't want blacks to be truly equal. Today, the southerns (in particular Christians) don't think gays should be able to marry. The war was inevitable unless the south were not willing to fight for something which they have been shown to be various times through out the years.
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