Comments on: What The Confederate Flag Really Really Means.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 21:55:55 +0000

I guess I’m not connecting your original point of slavery becoming counterproductive under full blown capitalism. Again, a fixed labor cost directly controls pricing, which is the only thing that is elastic in a free market economy. Not to sound ungrateful, but from a purely economic model a free labor force is a capitalist’s dream.
The south benefited from an artificial economy. That is true. Slavery is an unsustainable economic model.

By: Arthur Lewin

Arthur Lewin — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 13:42:48 +0000

Thanks, Steve. You raise some intriguing questions. Yes, they did “create a neo-feudalistic economic model. . . . during the early stages of the industrial revolution” in England and in the American North. Workers in both were treated very badly for the sake of profit for the capitalists. But the industries of the North and the industries of England, both heavily centered around cotton manufacturing, were competing with each other. And the South was selling cotton to both, without putting a tariff on cotton sold to England.

So the North attacked the South to end, or at least control and tax, that trade. England was actually toying with the idea of formally recognizing the independence of the South up until the Battle of Gettysburg, the decisive battle of the Civil War. After Gettysburg, after so many Northern soldiers had been killed, Lincoln said to heck with it, let’s just put out the Emancipation Proclamation, which effectively ended slavery in the South by crippling their war machine and thereby speeding up the end of the war. Make sense?

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 19:37:47 +0000

Very well thought out article.
I do have a question. Under full-blown capitalism how would slavery become counterproductive? If labor is a fixed cost of 0 then wouldn’t the plutocracy, namely wealthy land owners and the power-elite, in effect create a neo-feudalistic economic model? Isn’t that what they created during the early stages of the industrial revolution?
Thank you for presenting a vividly lucid argument. Just when I thought you were going in one direction you remained historically consistent.