It appears as if American capitalism is brutal and this brutality began during slavery

[Trausti]

Wait so... you're saying that if America didn't benefit from slavery economically in the long run, then capitalism can't have been the motivator for slavery? How would mass chattel slavery have made any sense whatsoever without a capitalistic incentive? Whether or not it worked has nothing to do with motive or opportunity.

The article pointed out that slavery held back the south and did not benefit the north.

Indeed. But that goes against the Narrative; so shut up.

That which follows the numerous windings of the Ohio upon the left is called Kentucky, that upon the right bears the name of the river. These two States only differ in a single respect; Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the State of Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders

Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio to the spot where that river falls into the Mississippi, may be said to sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient inspection of the surrounding objects will convince him as to which of the two is most favorable to mankind. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is rare; from time to time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primaeval forest recurs at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a scene of activity and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard which proclaims the presence of industry; the fields are covered with abundant harvests, the elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of the laborer, and man appears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which is the reward of labor.

Alexis De Tocqueville Democracy in America (1831)

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Wait so... you're saying that if America didn't benefit from slavery economically in the long run, then capitalism can't have been the motivator for slavery? How would mass chattel slavery have made any sense whatsoever without a capitalistic incentive? Whether or not it worked has nothing to do with motive or opportunity.

The article pointed out that slavery held back the south and did not benefit the north.

Yes, it did. No disagreement. It was never designed to benefit "the South", or any other nation. Collective good is not the primary goal of any capitalist system.

Or feudalist system, or socialist system, or communist system, or fascist system. However, what has been established is that, from a capitalist point of view, slavery held back the south.

 

[Politesse]

Yes, it did. No disagreement. It was never designed to benefit "the South", or any other nation. Collective good is not the primary goal of any capitalist system.

Or feudalist system, or socialist system, or communist system, or fascist system. However, what has been established is that, from a capitalist point of view, slavery held back the south.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not a capitalist system also motivated the trade. Your assumption that capitalism only causes good outcomes, and therefore couldn't have motivated a bad decision, is only your opinion and doesn't bear any weight on the discussion. Capitalism motivates bad decisions all the time. Taking out a business loan you know you can't pay back, say. Capitalism isn't off the hook for the bad call because it was a bad call, from a capitalist point of view. That bad call, however stupid, was motivated by a lust for the accumulation of personal capital whether or not it made any sense at all.

 

[Horatio Parker]

A couple of points.

One is health. The South's climate was unhealthy compared to the North (but not as bad as the Caribbean), due chiefly to malaria. Native Americans and Europeans were prone it. But Africans were resistant. So it made good economic sense to use African labor.

As an aside, I've seen it argued that the African resistance to malaria i.e. healthy, strong, etc is the origin of the "black buck" stereotype.

The other point is the harshness of American race based slavery. How could such a cruel system evolve from such supposedly enlightened people? Chiefly ignorance, I'd guess. Unlike the Mediterranean countries, Northern Europeans had little interaction with Africans. With little experience to the contrary, it was easier for them to regard Africans as inferior. Also, few people understood how bad the conditions of the slave trade were. The diagram of the Brookes slave ship, published in the late 18th century, was a huge factor in Britain outlawing slavery.

In America, most slave owners owned only a few slaves. Conditions were usually better for slaves on small holdings, since they more likely considered to an extent family. It seems likely then that many whites thought of slavery as not so bad. But the experience of the typical African slave was the polar opposite. Most slaves were on large plantations, where conditions were generally much worse, especially during harvest.

I guess I have three points: I disagree that the North didn't benefit from slavery, it benefited enormously. I wonder if the North didn't have its cake and eat it too, since they reaped the financial rewards without having the mess in their own backyards.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I suppose you could say the North benefited enormously if you could make an analogy to a man benefiting enormously because his brother totaled their car.

 

[Politesse]

I suppose you could say the North benefited enormously if you could make an analogy to a man benefiting enormously because his brother totaled their car.

If they owned an auto salvage yard, the analogy would be accurate.

Why are we pretending slavery only occurred in the South, anyway?

 

[Trausti]

I suppose you could say the North benefited enormously if you could make an analogy to a man benefiting enormously because his brother totaled their car.

If they owned an auto salvage yard, the analogy would be accurate.

Why are we pretending slavery only occurred in the South, anyway?

That the northern states banned it might lead you to an answer.

 

[Politesse]

I suppose you could say the North benefited enormously if you could make an analogy to a man benefiting enormously because his brother totaled their car.

If they owned an auto salvage yard, the analogy would be accurate.

Why are we pretending slavery only occurred in the South, anyway?

That the northern states banned it might lead you to an answer.

Seems like rather picking and choosing to make a forced point. If slavery was "foundational to the economy" as per above, then it only matters a little that some states banned it earlier than others, if it was once widespread in all quarters, and it was. Very few of my own ancestors came here on anything other than terms of unpaid indenture, and there were also permanent chattel slaves in nearly all of the colonies by the time of the Revolution. Northerners may like to forget their state's participation in slavery, but forgetting the past is a game everyone tries to play.

 

[Politesse]

We could also look at the present, where not all states employ outright unpaid labor, but nearly all of them take advantage of the 13th amendment's exceptions or certain other legal vacuums, relying on at the very least severely under-compensated labor. How different would the U.S. economy look if all people of color, whether undocumented immigrants laboring in our fields without any compensation except the release of a supposed term of indenture, or black men laboring in the prison system for pennies on the hour, were paid the minimum wage other citizens are guaranteed? I'll tell you one thing, the men who own those plantations and prisons will surely insist that this would be economically unfeasible, that their businesses simply could not exist if their workers were held to have some sort of minimal rights. That makes it sound to me like slavery was and is critical to understanding our national economy. There has never been any point at there wasn't a large swath of the American workforce working either without pay, or for such laughably small pay that it hardly matters. Do we have to do things this way? Is it best to do things this way? Of course not. I hope not, anyway. But it is the way we do and have always done them.

 

[Harry Bosch]

We could also look at the present, where not all states employ outright unpaid labor, but nearly all of them take advantage of the 13th amendment's exceptions or certain other legal vacuums, relying on at the very least severely under-compensated labor. How different would the U.S. economy look if all people of color, whether undocumented immigrants laboring in our fields without any compensation except the release of a supposed term of indenture, or black men laboring in the prison system for pennies on the hour, were paid the minimum wage other citizens are guaranteed? I'll tell you one thing, the men who own those plantations and prisons will surely insist that this would be economically unfeasible, that their businesses simply could not exist if their workers were held to have some sort of minimal rights. That makes it sound to me like slavery was and is critical to understanding our national economy. There has never been any point at there wasn't a large swath of the American workforce working either without pay, or for such laughably small pay that it hardly matters. Do we have to do things this way? Is it best to do things this way? Of course not. I hope not, anyway. But it is the way we do and have always done them.

This is why I generally try to avoid threads on slavery: they always degenerate into arguments that working for a wage is slavery. It's offensive to compare workers to slaves as it gives cover to actual slave holders. There are more slaves today than at anytime in history. Let's get it off the table straight off: slaves are those who have no rights and no future. Zippo. Wage workers have rights, options, and a future.

 

[Politesse]

We could also look at the present, where not all states employ outright unpaid labor, but nearly all of them take advantage of the 13th amendment's exceptions or certain other legal vacuums, relying on at the very least severely under-compensated labor. How different would the U.S. economy look if all people of color, whether undocumented immigrants laboring in our fields without any compensation except the release of a supposed term of indenture, or black men laboring in the prison system for pennies on the hour, were paid the minimum wage other citizens are guaranteed? I'll tell you one thing, the men who own those plantations and prisons will surely insist that this would be economically unfeasible, that their businesses simply could not exist if their workers were held to have some sort of minimal rights. That makes it sound to me like slavery was and is critical to understanding our national economy. There has never been any point at there wasn't a large swath of the American workforce working either without pay, or for such laughably small pay that it hardly matters. Do we have to do things this way? Is it best to do things this way? Of course not. I hope not, anyway. But it is the way we do and have always done them.

This is why I generally try to avoid threads on slavery: they always degenerate into arguments that working for a wage is slavery. It's offensive to compare workers to slaves as it gives cover to actual slave holders. There are more slaves today than at anytime in history. Let's get it off the table straight off: slaves are those who have no rights and no future. Zippo. Wage workers have rights, options, and a future.

Then there was never slavery in the U.S. Slaves always had some rights under the law, and the promise of a future (they were told, often, that if they worked very hard they or their children might earn their freedom eventually; many even did so). Those who owned them often earnestly believed that they were even benefiting their poor child-like slaves, taking care of their charges who would not be able to survive on their own. The heart breaks.

Bottom line: If slavery is only an imaginary "worst case scenario" than there was never slavery. But that isn't how slavery is reasonably defined. If you aren't reasonably compensated for your labor on behalf of another, you're a slave. It doesn't matter if they give you a few pennies an hour, or provide food and bed, or promise they'll one day help you move your parents across the border. If in the immediate sense you are not paid what would be considered normal wages, and you have no legal recourse to change that situation nor any practical means of leaving it, you're being kept as a slave.

Both of the groups I mentioned specifically customarily work for no wages at all, in many states and many situations. In the case of the prison system, that's not just slavery but legal slavery, since the amendment that abolished slavery explicitly exempted prisoners from that right. That leaves it up to the state government to decide, and in Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama it is still 100% to employ slave labor as long as all of your laborers were sentenced for a crime at some point.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I suppose you could say the North benefited enormously if you could make an analogy to a man benefiting enormously because his brother totaled their car.

Considering the disease variables, I'd say the South did about as well as it could.

 

[Trausti]

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