Context, from the American Civil War thread:
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 27, 2011, 01:10:27 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 12:32:34 PM
A Quick Union Victory in 1861 would in my view more likely result in a quick abolition of slavery. No longer needing to placate the border states after the quick victory and a republican congress refusing to seat pro-slavery secessionists abolition would have happened quickly as part of the terms of surrender. I agree, however, that this abolition would have been performed on southern terms, though on a northern timetable. More than likely there would be compensation and/or time limited indentured service of some kind. Slavery was dead as soon as the south took up arms.
Slavery was dead before the South took up arms. It was only a matter of time. Quick victory might have had the effect of dragging out the status quo though, IMO.
So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms? I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?
Wishful thinking. Slavery was far more entrenched in 1861 than it had been in 1800.
Heck even after it was outlawed it really just kept right on going through share croping and other such loop holes.
Quote from: viper37 on June 27, 2011, 03:56:07 PM
So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms? I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?
Thee issue wasn't the expansion of slavery
per se, but the retention by slaveholders of their ability to block legislation via their seats in the Senate. They had to make sure they got their "fair share" of new Senate seats.
Slavery was dead because it was inefficient in the machine age. One of the reasons the South seceded when it did was because its leaders recognized they were failing to keep the industrial revolution out of the South, and the industrial revolution spelled the doom of the planter aristocracy's monopoly on political power.
It's an open question how long slavery would have lasted without a war, but, yeah, it would have eventually been ended one way or another.
I tend to be of the rather pessimistic view that it would have taken another 60 years or so to die out. We had a poll about it on the old forum, and as I recall, most weren't as pessimistic and thought would have ended within 30 years.
It did grow after 1800, but it had already hit its peak by 1861 and was destined to become extinct on its own. I'm one who thought 30 years would probably be all it had left, but if it were still in place by the time we got the turn of the century peaks in immigration from Europe that would have been the final nail. Look what happened in Brazil.
Quote from: viper37 on June 27, 2011, 03:56:07 PM
So, please enlighten me, how was slavery dead before the South took up arms? I thought the whole issue was about preventing its export into newer territories?
Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry. Seccession also made it was unsustainable with the south having a 3 thousand mile frontier with a free country refusing to return escaped slaves. King Cotton diplomacy showed clearly that the south would not have survived a abolitionist motivated boycott and conversion to egyptian and indian cotton.
I sort of expect that every grain barge from ohio to new orleans would return north with quite a few escaped slaves on board protected by a USA flag on what any secession agreement would be the international waterway that is the mississippi.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 04:26:16 PM
Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry.
Cotton pickers didn't really take off until the 1950s. The sharecropping scheme came before that. Slavery might have been seen as competitive to sharecropping. And industry took even later to come to the South.
Sharecropping was never as profitable as slave owning. Slavery would have continued in the South so long as the states were allowed to decide if it was legal.
Quote from: ulmont on June 27, 2011, 04:47:10 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 04:26:16 PM
Slavery could have continued for four or five more decades killed either economically with the invention of cotton picking machinery or socially with conversion to industry.
Cotton pickers didn't really take off until the 1950s. The sharecropping scheme came before that. Slavery might have been seen as competitive to sharecropping. And industry took even later to come to the South.
Mechanical cotton pickers existed in the 1800s, but weren't economically feasible due to the low price of cotton and the cheapness of the labor, two things that might have been changed by a quick end to the war. Mechanization of cotton historically came about as a result of the need for cotton growers to get their costs below that of the synthetic fibers, which didn't start to see large-scale global production until WW2. I don't think the sharecropping system would have sprung up if emancipation had been accompanied by compensation.
I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on. Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom? Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?
Quote from: Ideologue on June 27, 2011, 05:25:58 PM
I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on. Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom? Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?
Agricultural chattel slavery is possible because of the remoteness of the location and the lack of access to transport.
Totalitarian slave industry is possible in guarded camps in remote locations making special goods with three distinct disadvantages
1) The necessity of having armed guards to keep the prisoners from revolting
2) The quick wastage (death) of craftsmen
3) The extra cost of transport for being in remote locations
Totalitarian slave industry is only possible when the state is willing to bear the extra costs for political or war reasons. Note, slaves did not make T-34s, slaves worked the mines supplying the steel smelters supplying the tractor factories making T-34s. The V-2 Concentration Camp inmates were being quickly worked to death.
To have competitive industry you need
1) motivated and trained workers
2) good communications to suppliers and markets
Chattel Slave Industry takes away the two most important control measures over the slaves, the inability to escape and the ability to punish. You can't whip a loom operator and replace him with a "field nigger" on the loom for the two weeks he needs to recover from the whipping. Slaves who worked as overseers were already getting special privileges. What do you call a group of skilled slave loom operators demanding special privileges? Oh, yes, you call that a Union.
Er, the South wasn't really remote geographically. And they had slaves working in industrial jobs as well http://freeuniv.com/mirror/h101w11.htm
Quote from: Ideologue on June 27, 2011, 05:25:58 PM
I hear the argument that slavery is automatically obsolete with the advent of industrialization all the time, but am unsure what rationale it's based on. Why is it impossible for a slave to run a mechanical loom? Or, for that matter, a T-34 assembly line or a V-2 factory?
Think about it; you have two factories, one run by slaves and one by paid workers.
The machinery in both plants is identical, and will work well only so long as it is properly used and looked after.
The free worker knows that, if his machine breaks, he is out of a job until it is fixed. So, he wants to take care of his machine so he can continue to get paid - his best interets are served when the machine is working.
The slave, also knows that, if his machine breaks, he is out of a job until it is fixed. So, he wants to break his machine so he can avoid work - his best interets are served when the machine is broken.
Every chattel slave is a saboteur. In the fields, there is little to sabotage. In the factory, there is lots.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 05:58:09 PM
Er, the South wasn't really remote geographically. And they had slaves working in industrial jobs as well http://freeuniv.com/mirror/h101w11.htm
The individual plantations rather than the country itself. The remoteness I refer to is the remoteness of the backwater plantations that most slaves lived on. Your reference doesn't list any manufacturing and has a very broad definition of industry (including tobacco curing among others).
QuoteXI. Iron works huge employers of slaves: Across the south about 10,000 slaves worked producing iron.
Sounds like manufacturing to me.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:25:01 PM
QuoteXI. Iron works huge employers of slaves: Across the south about 10,000 slaves worked producing iron.
Sounds like manufacturing to me.
10,000/4,000,000. :contract:
Anecdotes and exemptions do exist naturally, and they prove only that exemptions are possible. Your contrarian instincts aside, the fact that almost half a dozen northern states had more industry than the entire confederacy suggest that slavery correlates with a lack of industry.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:35:11 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:25:01 PM
QuoteXI. Iron works huge employers of slaves: Across the south about 10,000 slaves worked producing iron.
Sounds like manufacturing to me.
10,000/4,000,000. :contract:
Anecdotes and exemptions do exist naturally, and they prove only that exemptions are possible. Your contrarian instincts aside, the fact that almost half a dozen northern states had more industry than the entire confederacy suggest that slavery correlates with a lack of industry.
It wasn't that slave labor couldn't be used in industry, it was that slave cotton and tobacco farming were more profitable than small-scale industry, and the South didn't have much capital to build large-scale industry (because despite the profitability of cotton and tobacco cultivation, most of the capital in the South was tied up in land and slaves).
Quote from: dps on June 27, 2011, 06:41:48 PM
It wasn't that slave labor couldn't be used in industry, it was that slave cotton and tobacco farming were more profitable than small-scale industry, and the South didn't have much capital to build large-scale industry (because despite the profitability of cotton and tobacco cultivation, most of the capital in the South was tied up in land and slaves).
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:35:11 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:25:01 PM
QuoteXI. Iron works huge employers of slaves: Across the south about 10,000 slaves worked producing iron.
Sounds like manufacturing to me.
10,000/4,000,000. :contract:
Anecdotes and exemptions do exist naturally, and they prove only that exemptions are possible. Your contrarian instincts aside, the fact that almost half a dozen northern states had more industry than the entire confederacy suggest that slavery correlates with a lack of industry.
You said it was only possible in certain situations which did not apply to ante-bellum South, my sourced proved you wrong. It was possible as it was done. It wasn't done very much, but it was still done.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:45:42 PM
You said it was only possible in certain situations which did not apply to ante-bellum South, my sourced proved you wrong. It was possible as it was done. It wasn't done very much, but it was still done.
I refer you to the Icelandic Banana Industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
The existence of iron and coal in the former?
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Quote from: dps on June 27, 2011, 06:41:48 PM
It wasn't that slave labor couldn't be used in industry, it was that slave cotton and tobacco farming were more profitable than small-scale industry, and the South didn't have much capital to build large-scale industry (because despite the profitability of cotton and tobacco cultivation, most of the capital in the South was tied up in land and slaves).
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
Why are you assuming they didn't? Someone had to pay for those railroads.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:47:12 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:45:42 PM
You said it was only possible in certain situations which did not apply to ante-bellum South, my sourced proved you wrong. It was possible as it was done. It wasn't done very much, but it was still done.
I refer you to the Icelandic Banana Industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland
I fail to see how it's that's relevant. You said something could not be, and it was. There was nothing "special" about the circumstances.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 27, 2011, 06:51:18 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
The existence of iron and coal in the former?
iron and coal are found in large amounts in ante-bellum virginia, kentucky, tennessee and georgia. Not to mention the rivers making the entire mississippi rivier valley coal "producing".
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:51:38 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Quote from: dps on June 27, 2011, 06:41:48 PM
It wasn't that slave labor couldn't be used in industry, it was that slave cotton and tobacco farming were more profitable than small-scale industry, and the South didn't have much capital to build large-scale industry (because despite the profitability of cotton and tobacco cultivation, most of the capital in the South was tied up in land and slaves).
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
Why are you assuming they didn't? Someone had to pay for those railroads.
Yet they didn't choose to invest in manufacturing using slaves, preferring to use free men in the north.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Quote from: dps on June 27, 2011, 06:41:48 PM
It wasn't that slave labor couldn't be used in industry, it was that slave cotton and tobacco farming were more profitable than small-scale industry, and the South didn't have much capital to build large-scale industry (because despite the profitability of cotton and tobacco cultivation, most of the capital in the South was tied up in land and slaves).
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
Because they didn't want to have send their sons to run plants in the South, where they'd be looked down on because they weren't part of the plantation aristocracy.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:53:28 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:47:12 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:45:42 PM
You said it was only possible in certain situations which did not apply to ante-bellum South, my sourced proved you wrong. It was possible as it was done. It wasn't done very much, but it was still done.
I refer you to the Icelandic Banana Industry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_Iceland
I fail to see how it's that's relevant. You said something could not be, and it was. There was nothing "special" about the circumstances.
No I did not say that. I pointed out some of the specific problems with using slaves, suggesting that they might be the causes of the lack of southern chattel industrialization. I did not say it absolutely did not happen. You continually seem to not read my posts or consider their content before replying to them.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:44:01 PM
Why do Boston, New York and Philadelphia capitalists invest in Ohio, Indian and Illinois, but not in Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia?
The Northern ownership of the southern railway system is a constant bleat of the planter class.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:53:28 PM
I fail to see how it's that's relevant. You said something could not be, and it was. There was nothing "special" about the circumstances.
I am not sure what this argument is about. Iron making isn't "industrial" except in the grossest sense. The Pharaohs had those kinds of "industries" and probably used slaves to stoke the furnaces back then, too.
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:59:33 PM
Yet they didn't choose to invest in manufacturing using slaves, preferring to use free men in the north.
Probably had more to do with transportation and proximity to customers.
Quote from: grumbler on June 27, 2011, 07:06:39 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 06:53:28 PM
I fail to see how it's that's relevant. You said something could not be, and it was. There was nothing "special" about the circumstances.
I am not sure what this argument is about. Iron making isn't "industrial" except in the grossest sense. The Pharaohs had those kinds of "industries" and probably used slaves to stoke the furnaces back then, too.
How would you characterize an Ironworks?
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:12:28 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:59:33 PM
Yet they didn't choose to invest in manufacturing using slaves, preferring to use free men in the north.
Probably had more to do with transportation and proximity to customers.
So the south did not consume steel or cloth or any industrial products?
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:16:20 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:12:28 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:59:33 PM
Yet they didn't choose to invest in manufacturing using slaves, preferring to use free men in the north.
Probably had more to do with transportation and proximity to customers.
So the south did not consume steel or cloth or any industrial products?
Not to the same extent, no. The South had little in the way of urban population. Most people where rural farmers. Not only where they typically dirt poor, but it was hard to transport goods to them. It didn't help that the Southern rail net was a bit chaotic.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:28:22 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:16:20 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:12:28 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 06:59:33 PM
Yet they didn't choose to invest in manufacturing using slaves, preferring to use free men in the north.
Probably had more to do with transportation and proximity to customers.
So the south did not consume steel or cloth or any industrial products?
Not to the same extent, no. The South had little in the way of urban population. Most people where rural farmers. Not only where they typically dirt poor, but it was hard to transport goods to them. It didn't help that the Southern rail net was a bit chaotic.
So, you are suggesting that the confederate states were self sufficient in industrial goods pre war?
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:36:36 PM
So, you are suggesting that the confederate states were self sufficient in industrial goods pre war?
Nope. I'm suggesting that many Southerners just had to with out.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:39:21 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:36:36 PM
So, you are suggesting that the confederate states were self sufficient in industrial goods pre war?
Nope. I'm suggesting that many Southerners just had to with out.
Yet again you are nothing more than a massive digression. We were discussing if industrialization led to abolition.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:15:16 PM
How would you characterize an Ironworks?
An establishment where iron is smelted or where heavy iron products are made.
Quote from: grumbler on June 27, 2011, 07:49:04 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:15:16 PM
How would you characterize an Ironworks?
An establishment where iron is smelted or where heavy iron products are made.
What kind of business would that be? Agricultural? Service?
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:44:02 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:39:21 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:36:36 PM
So, you are suggesting that the confederate states were self sufficient in industrial goods pre war?
Nope. I'm suggesting that many Southerners just had to with out.
Yet again you are nothing more than a massive digression. We were discussing if industrialization led to abolition.
Then don't ask me questions if you don't want to read the answer.
Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was one of the places that attempted to use slaves in skilled industrial work, and it failed. Quality was simply not adequate, even though its manager abandoned chattel slavery and paid the slaves for hours worked - over 60 per week! :lol:
Slaves are saboteurs, as I noted earlier. That is why the South couldn't industrialize using slaves and wouldn't have been able to mechanize farming with slaves.
With the Southerners unable to blackmail the North into enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, the South would have been hard pressed to hold on to its slaves. The more skilled the Southerners tried to make them as part of an industrial revolution, the more likely the slave could get a better job if he escaped, and the more incentive to do so (and for Northerners to help).
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:54:34 PM
What kind of business would that be? Agricultural? Service?
probably not.
Quote from: grumbler on June 27, 2011, 07:56:47 PM
Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was one of the places that attempted to use slaves in skilled industrial work, and it failed. Quality was simply not adequate, even though its manager abandoned chattel slavery and paid the slaves for hours worked - over 60 per week! :lol:
Slaves are saboteurs, as I noted earlier. That is why the South couldn't industrialize using slaves and wouldn't have been able to mechanize farming with slaves.
With the Southerners unable to blackmail the North into enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, the South would have been hard pressed to hold on to its slaves. The more skilled the Southerners tried to make them as part of an industrial revolution, the more likely the slave could get a better job if he escaped, and the more incentive to do so (and for Northerners to help).
When did Tredgar abandon slavery?
Looking around it was going on in 1861 and I have no reference to the voluntary abolition of the practice. In fact, it was apparently quite profitable. Cases of industrial slavery have been documented in the modern day in East Asia. Sweatshops and a brick manufacturer in China.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:55:51 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:44:02 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 07:39:21 PM
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 07:36:36 PM
So, you are suggesting that the confederate states were self sufficient in industrial goods pre war?
Nope. I'm suggesting that many Southerners just had to with out.
Yet again you are nothing more than a massive digression. We were discussing if industrialization led to abolition.
Then don't ask me questions if you don't want to read the answer.
advice worth taking it seems...
This feels like an ACW hijack in a ACW thread.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 08:13:31 PM
Looking around it was going on in 1861 and I have no reference to the voluntary abolition of the practice. In fact, it was apparently quite profitable.
Tredegar Iron abandoned the idea of having skilled slaves work the plant pre-war, especially when the white workers refused to go along with it. Tredegar Iron re-introduced the idea of skilled slave labor during the war (due to the loss of so many skilled workers to the armies), but all that accomplished was to make quality fall off the cliff. Tredegar was always on the edge of insolvency until the South started arming itself for the war (Tredegar got the contract to build the Richmond Arsenal, and that saved it) due to its lower efficiency compared to its Northern counterparts (which was in part due to the lack of quality raw materials, mind; the South imported a lot of its pig iron from the North, because Southern pig iron was seldom produced via blast furnace and so was of inferior quality).
QuoteCases of industrial slavery have been documented in the modern day in East Asia. Sweatshops and a brick manufacturer in China.
We are talking chattel slavery here, not mere involuntary servitude.
Quote from: grumbler on June 27, 2011, 04:04:22 PM
Slavery was dead because it was inefficient in the machine age. One of the reasons the South seceded when it did was because its leaders recognized they were failing to keep the industrial revolution out of the South, and the industrial revolution spelled the doom of the planter aristocracy's monopoly on political power.
Slavery was doomed because the machine age was coming, but it wasn't dead in 1860. In 1900, 41% of the employment in the country was agricultural, and "Early 20th century agriculture was labor intensive, and it took place on a large number of small, diversified farms in rural areas where more than half of the U.S. population lived. These farms employed close to half of the U.S. workforce, along with 22 million work animals, and produced an average of five different commodities."
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib3/eib3.htm
I would expect the south was disproportionately agricultural and non mechanized in 1900, but even with 41% of your employment in agriculture, that leaves ample opportunity for use of chattel slavery.
The economy began to move rapidly from farming after 1900 (and it became more industrialized), so the demand for slaves would fall despite the probable growth in their population, which would collapse prices and make emancipation much easier. But the south was militantly pro slavery in 1860 even though it wasn't in the region's overall interest, and strongly pro segregation through to the 1960s despite it being harmful to their interests.
Quote from: grumbler on June 27, 2011, 08:55:42 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 08:13:31 PM
Looking around it was going on in 1861 and I have no reference to the voluntary abolition of the practice. In fact, it was apparently quite profitable.
Tredegar Iron abandoned the idea of having skilled slaves work the plant pre-war, especially when the white workers refused to go along with it. Tredegar Iron re-introduced the idea of skilled slave labor during the war (due to the loss of so many skilled workers to the armies), but all that accomplished was to make quality fall off the cliff. Tredegar was always on the edge of insolvency until the South started arming itself for the war (Tredegar got the contract to build the Richmond Arsenal, and that saved it) due to its lower efficiency compared to its Northern counterparts (which was in part due to the lack of quality raw materials, mind; the South imported a lot of its pig iron from the North, because Southern pig iron was seldom produced via blast furnace and so was of inferior quality).
Care to source that?
Quote from: Razgovory on June 27, 2011, 10:02:50 PM
Care to source that?
It's covered at the Tredegar Museum. I'm sure there's stuff online as well. As I said, the Tredegar Iron Works was probably
the signature facility for trying to make industrial slavery work, and they only tried it out of desperation, because they were going out of business if they didn't cut costs. It failed, but Tredegar survived because John Brown's Raid caused the Virginia legislature to move their arsenal to Richmond.
So, that's a no.
Thank you, come again. :)
You guys are too much.
Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.
Quote from: 11B4V on June 28, 2011, 12:55:46 AM
You guys are too much.
Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.
You guys are too much!
I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy. I have clearly stated my position. Raz has taken no clear position. What is there to Google?
Quote from: grumbler on June 28, 2011, 09:00:10 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on June 28, 2011, 12:55:46 AM
You guys are too much.
Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.
You guys are too much!
I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy. I have clearly stated my position. Raz has taken no clear position. What is there to Google?
Raz wanted confirmation of what you wrote.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on June 27, 2011, 04:13:47 PM
It did grow after 1800, but it had already hit its peak by 1861 and was destined to become extinct on its own. I'm one who thought 30 years would probably be all it had left, but if it were still in place by the time we got the turn of the century peaks in immigration from Europe that would have been the final nail. Look what happened in Brazil.
Well the social and racial aspects were what would have sustained it long after it ceased to be as super profitable. Heck even in the event that slavery ended the South still clung to agriculture with ridiculous tenacity well into the 20th century.
Quote from: garbon on June 28, 2011, 10:01:00 AM
Raz wanted confirmation of what you wrote.
And when he got it, he rejected it. That's fine with me; I suspect he was just being contrarian, so I don't actually care what he believes or doesn't believe.
Debate that consists purely of challenging arguments without counter-arguments isn't interesting to me, even when Raz is pulling that shit on Viking.
Quote from: Valmy on June 28, 2011, 11:27:37 AM
Well the social and racial aspects were what would have sustained it long after it ceased to be as super profitable. Heck even in the event that slavery ended the South still clung to agriculture with ridiculous tenacity well into the 20th century.
:yes: You have to look at the political structure of the South as well as economics to understand the entrenchment of slavery. The Southern aristocracy was slave-rich but cash-poor, so they clung to slavery because wealth was the basis for their superior status. One of the reasons southern states had poor public educational systems for so long (with effects seen today) was because the elites wanted it that way; they could afford private education, and their power derived partly from their superior education, which meant domination of the professional classes by people of "their type."
Quote from: Viking on June 27, 2011, 05:37:40 PM
Agricultural chattel slavery is possible because of the remoteness of the location and the lack of access to transport.
Totalitarian slave industry is possible in guarded camps in remote locations making special goods with three distinct disadvantages
1) The necessity of having armed guards to keep the prisoners from revolting
2) The quick wastage (death) of craftsmen
3) The extra cost of transport for being in remote locations
Totalitarian slave industry is only possible when the state is willing to bear the extra costs for political or war reasons. Note, slaves did not make T-34s, slaves worked the mines supplying the steel smelters supplying the tractor factories making T-34s. The V-2 Concentration Camp inmates were being quickly worked to death.
didn't they have all that already for agricultural chattel slavery?
Quote
To have competitive industry you need
1) motivated and trained workers
2) good communications to suppliers and markets
comparing 18th-19th century industrial worker plants in the North with an equivalent in the South, but operated by slaves, I can't see how the northerners felt really motivated. Sure they were free, but they were barely paid, often lived in worker camps or other miserable conditions... Not the most motivating factor.
Quote from: grumbler on June 28, 2011, 09:00:10 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on June 28, 2011, 12:55:46 AM
You guys are too much.
Google "Tredegar and Slaves" and have a ball.
You guys are too much!
I cannot provide evidence in a controversy when there is no controversy. I have clearly stated my position. Raz has taken no clear position. What is there to Google?
I am tracking with what you said Grumbler. Rather interesting thread. That post was for the benefit of Raz.
Ive always heard that the brass frame revolvers were more numerious in the Confederate army than the Union. Tredegar plant seems to kind of confirm that. I dont know.