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I 100% can say there are human beings in the US that would still want slavery, and not give a single thought to the economics of it. And thats the kindest things I can say about them. Everything else is so so much worse.
Ezra Pound's quotation has always been interesting to me: “A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ah, Ezra Pound. I love his "Cantos" but abhor his contemptuous view of mankind. It's hard to believe such gorgeous poetry came from such a cruel man. This disgusting quote blames the victim. I wonder how ol' Ezra would have made out if he had been forcibly incarcerated, mistreated, and made to work until he dropped.
Probably forever. It was not on its way out for economic reasons. Though I am hardly a Marxist I would argue that we still have slavery albeit in other forms than "auction block" chattel slavery.
Probably forever. It was not on its way out for economic reasons. Though I am hardly a Marxist I would argue that we still have slavery albeit in other forms than "auction block" chattel slavery.
Oh yes, we certainly do. We have people in this world, in this country, who are in some sort of involuntary servitude (not counting prison inmates or our 13 year old sons). Human trafficking is not something that only happens somewhere else.
The peculiar institution in the south might have lasted a while if there was no interference from anti-slavery forces or public opinion in the north. That's not very likely. There would still be runaways and underground railroad efforts. The idea of slave breeding farms is not ever going to be popular. Slavery was not going to expand into the new states in the plains or west. The conditions were not going to warrant it. Homesteaders and townspeople were not going to be supportive. The labor activism of the late 1800s would have not been supportive. The strength of the southern states would be diminished in Congress and the Fugitive Slave Act or other pro-slavery laws would be in jeopardy. Some smart person or a commission might have come up with a plan to phase it out.
Probably forever. It was not on its way out for economic reasons. Though I am hardly a Marxist I would argue that we still have slavery albeit in other forms than "auction block" chattel slavery.
If not for the cotton gin, it would have been on its way out in 1860. They were already selling the slaves down south from tobacco country down to cotton country. There was still some growth in slaves in the border states and northern tier, but it was natural growth and far below the rate in the deep south where it was still growing quickly, 31% from 1850-1860.
Conventional wisdom is free labor is cheaper than paid labor, but that doesn't take into account the variables.
How much would it have cost to pay poor whites and free blacks to work the fields?
Probably not much more than the equivalent of minimum wage today, as it was unskilled labor.
Or perhaps even less than that, as there were fewer monthly bills back then. You didn't have to pay for utilities, cell phone and cable bills, car payments, gas or maintenance or many types of insurance.
So with free labor, a plantation owner has to start paying that meager salary up front, where they don't have to pay the slave, so to speak.
But look what they do have to pay:
First, buying the slave in the first place.
A slave who was a young man in his prime, with experience as a field hand, sold for about what a luxury car would today. Skilled slaves even more.
Whereas a plantation owner didn't have to drop the equivalent of 50 to 100K up front to bring on a new free laborer.
Then there's the cost of feeding, housing, clothing and providing medical care for slaves. In a way, that was like a necessary "benefits package" so to speak, and the plantation owner wouldn't have to provide those things for paid day laborers, because they don't live there.
Given these standards of care were subpar, you could say the same thing about inmates today, and yet in most states it still costs over 30K a year to house an inmate.
And that's what slaves were in a sense, inmates to the institution of slavery, confined to their masters property.
Then there was the cost of hiring and paying overseers on large plantations to ensure slaves didn't make a run for it.
That wouldn't be necessary if plantation owners were using free men and paying them. Because then those men are allowed to leave at any time. If they dont want to be there, they don't have to be.
So how long does a free person have to work for wages before it hits that break even point where the master has spent more than the cost of buying the slave and the cost of supporting them to date?
Hard to say, but probably many, many years and maybe never.
It's not like field slaves had the longest life expectancy, and the older they get, the slower they work, so there are those factors too.
Buy a slave who is 20, and he won't be worth nearly as much as you paid if you sell him when he's 40. And that's IF he lives that long.
Again, masters had an odd tendency to neglect their valuable "investment."
Whereas a free person who isn't as fast as he used to be, you can just fire him and hire someone else. There's no net loss there, you just change from paying Bob to paying Jim.
As it turns out, there was no free labor, just slave labor. And slaves were anything but cheap.
Would any of these factors hastened slavery's demise naturally?
If not for the cotton gin, it would have been on its way out in 1860. They were already selling the slaves down south from tobacco country down to cotton country. There was still some growth in slaves in the border states and northern tier, but it was natural growth and far below the rate in the deep south where it was still growing quickly, 31% from 1850-1860.
Agreed. The point being that only wishful thinking supports view that slavery would end naturally.
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