The Southern Slave Economy Was Anti-Capitalistic

[Chris]

Looking for a serious discussion of whether the South's slave economy was capitalistic or not, and if not what was it.

The topic is not slavery and its evils, that's a given, nor is it about the Civil War and its causes. Attempts to change the topic will be rejected and ejected.

I suggest you read the entire piece and I can only post some of it.


The Southern Slave Economy Was Anti-Capitalistic

...According to Genovese, slaveholders “were pre-capitalist aristocrats imbued with an antibourgeois spirit with values and mores which subordinated the drive for profit to honor, luxury, ease accomplishment, and family.”

In other words, the South was an inefficient economy where the entrepreneurial search for profits typical of capitalist economies was secondary. Instead, a quasi-aristocratic class (the planters) acted like medieval landowners more concerned about their culture of honor, power, and appearances than maximizing profits.

This analysis was challenged by the publication in 1974 of the controversial work Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Slavery. The authors, Nobel-awarded economist Robert W. Fogel and economic historian Stanley L. Engerman, applied novel econometric techniques to the study of slavery.

In a nutshell, Fogel and Engerman (F&E) concluded that:

i) slavery was economically profitable;
ii) slave labor was more efficient than free labor;
iii) planters behaved as modern entrepreneurs in a capitalist economy; and
iv) the South was not as underdeveloped as it had been suggested in comparison with the North.

In short, F&E suggested that the Southern economy was mostly capitalistic despite being largely based on slave labor. To what extent are these conclusions accurate?

...

[Mister D]

Genovese, and a host of others, are right. The antebellum south was not a capitalist society but the question itself is an odd one. I don't reduce capitalism to an economic system. I honestly don't see the point in doing so. You could make a similar argument for virtually any economy. Take contention #1, for example: slavery was economically profitable. This is inane. Slavery was always economically profitable. It was profitable in the ANC, the Roman Empire and to Mediterranean pirates in the Middle Ages. People tend to engage in economically profitable undertakings. Now it is true that in many societies the pursuit of profit was unknown but it does appear to be universal in more complex societies be they ancient or modern. What is this supposed to mean? Are we reducing capitalism to the profit motive? I don't see how this could add any clarity.

The south lost the war because it was both relatively underpopulated and underdeveloped. They had to buy or steal most of their weapons from Federal stockpiles!

[Newpublius]

Looking for a serious discussion of whether the South's slave economy was capitalistic or not, and if not what was it.

The topic is not slavery and its evils, that's a given, nor is it about the Civil War and its causes. Attempts to change the topic will be rejected and ejected.

I suggest you read the entire piece and I can only post some of it.


The Southern Slave Economy Was Anti-Capitalistic

I disagree, the Southerners were integrated into the world economy at the time. 2/3 of US exports at the time were bales of cotton. Just because its agricultural doesn't make it non-capitalist. The plantation owners did what any capitalist does. They put inputs in and sold the outputs, trading those outputs for the things they wanted. Of course the only difference was the fact one of those inputs were slaves, a human chattel.....

Morally indefensible, the motive behind slavery is still quite rational, the slave owner profits of course. If it weren't the cheapest way to do it it wouldn't be done.

People also forget why blacks were essential for Southern agriculture. Malaria.

White people really had an issue with it, the Indians had all died or been conquered. If you think its a joke look at white penetration of Africa versus the Americas.

[Chris]

As the author speaks for Genovese though the South couldn't compete with the rest of the new capitalistic world because "the South was an inefficient economy where the entrepreneurial search for profits typical of capitalist economies was secondary. Instead, a quasi-aristocratic class (the planters) acted like medieval landowners more concerned about their culture of honor, power, and appearances than maximizing profits."

Whether or not the then new capitalistic world was a better world is certainly debatable.

[Mister D]

As the author speaks for Genovese though the South couldn't compete with the rest of the new capitalistic world because "the South was an inefficient economy where the entrepreneurial search for profits typical of capitalist economies was secondary. Instead, a quasi-aristocratic class (the planters) acted like medieval landowners more concerned about their culture of honor, power, and appearances than maximizing profits."

Whether or not the then new capitalistic world was a better world is certainly debatable.

This, I believe, is the crux. Obviously, profit was sought but what set a traditional, hierarchical society like the antebellum south apart from Yankee New England in this respect was that the profit motive was subordinated to other interests. IOW, the economy of the south was embedded in other institutions and had not become independent of them let alone the motor of social and political change.

[Newpublius]

I think Wade Hampton and Jefferson Davis would disagree.

See for instance GA's Declaration of the Immediate Causea of Secession:

"Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property [editor's note: "property" means slaves] worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."

Note the number used..... $4bn

At the time that number represents the entire GDP of the nation. The wealthiest parts of the country are in MS (naturally excluding the slaves).

My poont of course is that its difficult to say that they are disconnected from the profit motive when the slaves are clearly perceived as a means to that very end.

[Mister D]

I think Wade Hampton and Jefferson Davis would disagree.

See for instance GA's Declaration of the Immediate Causea of Secession:

"Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property [editor's note: "property" means slaves] worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."

Note the number used..... $4bn

At the time that number represents the entire GDP of the nation. The wealthiest parts of the country are in MS (naturally excluding the slaves).

My poont of course is that its difficult to say that they are disconnected from the profit motive when the slaves are clearly perceived as a means to that very end.

Disagree with what? I don't know of anyone who would argue that the profit motive was absent from the antebellum south. The thesis of Fogel and Engerman is a bizarre one but I suppose that's what happens when capitalism is defined as seeking profit.

[Newpublius]

Well Chris had written: "the profit motive was subordinated to other interests."

It would be difficult to say that GIVEN 'King Cotton's' relative importance at that time:

1. It represents what world trade IS at that time. 2/3 of US exports.
2. At that time they are on top. They are the monied interest. The Rockefellers/Carnegies haven't come yet, the railroads are in their infancy.

[Mister D]

Well Chris had written: "the profit motive was subordinated to other interests."

It would be difficult to say that GIVEN 'King Cotton's' relative importance at that time:

1. It represents what world trade IS at that time. 2/3 of US exports.
2. At that time they are on top. They are the monied interest. The Rockefellers/Carnegies haven't come yet, the railroads are in their infancy.

I wrote that and they were. These aren't Rockefellers and Carnegies. They are a traditional social class reminiscent of European nobility and in the pre-modern mold. The abolition of slavery would undermine the entire social structure of the antebellum south. Because "monied interests" exist mean...what exactly? It's a capitalist society?

[Newpublius]

I wrote that and they were. These aren't Rockefellers and Carnegies. They are a traditional social class reminiscent of European nobility and in the pre-modern mold. The abolition of slavery would undermine the entire social structure of the antebellum south. Because "monied interests" exist mean...what exactly? It's a capitalist society?

Yes, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin

The entire endeavor is assocoated with capitalism, industrialization much more so than medieval manorialism or even pre-industrial latifundia in Rome. "King Cotton" didn't work but it wasn't a delusion, they simply underestimated the impact of a Southern supply disruption.