Why would slavery "choke to death?"

I keep hearing arguments about how Southern slavery would have eventually fizzled out because it simply wasn't economically viable, and so the slaveholders needed to expand slavery to prevent it from dying. This doesn't make much sense. In purely economic terms, chattel slavery seems perfectly viable; you're basically taking a segment of the population and removing their right to be paid or have proper working conditions. The slave household as an economic agent consumes less food, clothing, and shelter, and provides specialized labor on a much more massive scale than a regular workforce. Imagine the total GDP of a slave economy vs a capitalist economy.

Plus, the slaveholding society has fewer social problems itself, because there isn't any incentive to exploit other citizens when you have a large pool of slaves to draw from. I'd imagine the wealth gap would be largely eliminated.

Mouthwash said:

I keep hearing arguments about how Southern slavery would have eventually fizzled out because it simply wasn't economically viable, and so the slaveholders needed to expand slavery to prevent it from dying. This doesn't make much sense. In purely economic terms, chattel slavery seems perfectly viable; you're basically taking a segment of the population and removing their right to be paid or have proper working conditions. The slave household as an economic agent consumes less food, clothing, and shelter, and provides specialized labor on a much more massive scale than a regular workforce. Imagine the total GDP of a slave economy vs a capitalist economy.

Plus, the slaveholding society has fewer social problems itself, because there isn't any incentive to exploit other citizens when you have a large pool of slaves to draw from. I'd imagine the wealth gap would be largely eliminated.

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Yeah, I've never seen any evidence to suggest that Southern slavery was dying. That seems to be a line poplar with Confederate apologists. If anything, it seemed to have a future, since striking white workers at the Tredegar Iron Works were replaced with slaves. Factory owners in the late 19th century would have loved to have been able to replace workers with skilled slaves--not wage-slaves or poorly paid workers with very few rights, but actual, literal slaves who could be bought and sold.

Besides, slavery was very much an integral part of Southern society at the time. I can't imagine it just fading away easily, especially since it would have raised the question of what a white supremacist society would have done with all those now-free blacks.

Mouthwash said:

Plus, the slaveholding society has fewer social problems itself, because there isn't any incentive to exploit other citizens when you have a large pool of slaves to draw from. I'd imagine the wealth gap would be largely eliminated.

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I could imagine that there would still be a wealth gap. Discounting of course the massive poverty stricken population of slaves, you would find an upper class who would own hundreds of slaves ruling over the lower class who would either have very few or no slaves at all.

Joecoolyo said:

I could imagine that there would still be a wealth gap. Discounting of course the massive poverty stricken population of slaves, you would find an upper class who would own hundreds of slaves ruling over the lower class who would either have very few or no slaves at all.

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and that's exactly what happened, too. according to this, 75% of whites in the south were poor, which is actually much lower than i expected.

Because some people still think history is a battle between ideas.

Phrossack said:

Yeah, I've never seen any evidence to suggest that Southern slavery was dying. That seems to be a line poplar with Confederate apologists. If anything, it seemed to have a future, since striking white workers at the Tredegar Iron Works were replaced with slaves. Factory owners in the late 19th century would have loved to have been able to replace workers with skilled slaves--not wage-slaves or poorly paid workers with very few rights, but actual, literal slaves who could be bought and sold.

Besides, slavery was very much an integral part of Southern society at the time. I can't imagine it just fading away easily, especially since it would have raised the question of what a white supremacist society would have done with all those now-free blacks.

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http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13113386&postcount=30

Cheezy the Wiz said:

Because some people still think history is a battle between ideas.

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What?

Mouthwash said:

I keep hearing arguments about how Southern slavery would have eventually fizzled out because it simply wasn't economically viable, and so the slaveholders needed to expand slavery to prevent it from dying. This doesn't make much sense. In purely economic terms, chattel slavery seems perfectly viable; you're basically taking a segment of the population and removing their right to be paid or have proper working conditions. The slave household as an economic agent consumes less food, clothing, and shelter, and provides specialized labor on a much more massive scale than a regular workforce. Imagine the total GDP of a slave economy vs a capitalist economy.

Plus, the slaveholding society has fewer social problems itself, because there isn't any incentive to exploit other citizens when you have a large pool of slaves to draw from. I'd imagine the wealth gap would be largely eliminated.

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Wage laborers are more flexible, for what it's worth. Certainly, the Industrial Revolution could not really have been successful with slave labor. Wage labor requires providing no food or shelter, only a wage. It can stop providing that wage when production is not needed (and those with a wage can then find a different job during that time, shifting depending on labor demands). Slaves required support year-round. In addition, the cash crops the south relied on (the ones that really relied on slave labor) badly depleted the soil, which also reduced profitability.

I'm not going to pretend southern slavery was close to dying out. Even if it would eventually die out, that's not any justification for keeping it anyway. But there are economic arguments for why it was ultimately unsustainable. The need for expansion was also political as a way to ensure they continued to have votes in favor of maintaining slavery.

One thing to consider is that people will keep slaves even when it may not be the most profit maximizing possible, because people gain utility from having slaves. That's why people still keep slaves today. Even when it's illegal.

Also worth considering, it's not a choice between slavery existing as it did c.1860 or not existing at all. Even if slavery became uneconomical in some areas, it may remain economic in others. In our own timeline, the Southern economy continued to depend on unfree black labour in the former of convict labour, which was used not in the traditional production of crops but in "modern" industrial production, in the most menial forms of work in mining and smelting. Even accepting the arguments of the Southern apologists uncritically, we can't conclude that slavery would have vanished, only that it would have been reduced, and the institution of slavery reduced to 10% 5% even 1% of its former numbers is still an absolute and unqualified evil.

Louis XXIV said:

Wage laborers are more flexible, for what it's worth. Certainly, the Industrial Revolution could not really have been successful with slave labor. Wage labor requires providing no food or shelter, only a wage. It can stop providing that wage when production is not needed (and those with a wage can then find a different job during that time, shifting depending on labor demands). Slaves required support year-round. In addition, the cash crops the south relied on (the ones that really relied on slave labor) badly depleted the soil, which also reduced profitability.

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It's worth considering, though, that the owner of the slave doesn't need to set them to work on his own capital, any more than the direct employer of wage-labour does. Free labour is often employed through temp agencies or subcontractors, so why not slave labour? Historically, slavers did sometimes rent their slaves out, and it's easy to imagine this become more systematised, especially if the supply of new slaves is limited, which thanks to the British Navy is about the only thing we actually could guarantee. So long as overall demand for menial labour remains roughly consistent, it doesn't necessarily matter if the demands of individual plantation, mine or factory owners fluctuates.

Yeah, the argument is generally one drug up by traitor apologists in an attempt to justify the extremely unpalatable opinions of their pet nation. It's ok the CSA was a nation founded on slaves because slavery was going the way of the dinosaurs anyway. It's a way for these "historians" to further push the idea that the Civil War was not, in fact, fought over slavery. Of course the ironic part, I suppose is the only part of the "slavery was dying" argument that holds any kind of academic water/interest is that, while slavery was in most respects decidedly not dying, there was a genuine and far-ranging perception on the part of the South writ-large that the institution of slavery was seriously under threat and the North was doing everything in its power to exacerbate that situation. The thought of slavery going away was a terrifying notion, not just to those large plantation-owners who profited directly from the institution, but also to that vast majority of non or small-time slaveholders who felt the entirety of their society and their place in life would be completely upended if slavery went away.

So slavery was not dying, but the idea that slavery was dying certainly was a direct contributor to the start of the Civil War.

Sugar cane originally made plantation slavery profitable in the Caribbean. That ended with the introduction of beet sugar in Europe.

Then the industrial revolution kicked of tremendous demand for cotton, which the US south practicing plantation slavery could provide at profit.

In between those two, it seemed reasonable to suppose the institution would limp on until eventually disolved for lack of profitability.

Mouthwash said:

Imagine the total GDP of a slave economy vs a capitalist economy.

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I think there are historical events we can look to for precedents, if not concrete examples. In addition to the US Civil War, where the capitalist economy stomped the slave economy (most people seem to agree that the key difference was industrial vs. agricultural, not capitalist vs. slave, but still), WWII can serve as a data point. In Why the Allies Won Richard Overy hypothesizes that part of the reason the United States and the Soviet Union so outproduced Germany and Japan was because of the commitment of their relative workforces to their causes, and the fact that Germany and Japan used some slave labor. Of course there were other factors at work, as there always are, but I don't know if you'll find a single, perfect example of what you're looking for.

It does seem like capitalist economies have pretty well curb-stomped every other kind of economy in the last couple of hundred years. To at least some degree, the proof is in the pudding. It isn't as though slavery hasn't been tried since capitalism took hold, but maybe not with the commitment of Imperial Rome, Ancient Egypt, or the pre-Columbian Aztecs.

I think it may also be true that American slavery was the most brutal and dehumanizing of slave economies. I've heard/read that Roman slaves had some legal rights & protections, for example, and that Aztec slaves could own property (including other slaves). If this is true, it may be hypothesized that American slavery in particular was due for a comeuppance, one way or another.

Wouldn't continued existence of slavery stall the introduction of an industrial society because slavery disproportionately favours agriculture, or is that untrue?

Kaiserguard said:

Wouldn't continued existence of slavery stall the introduction of an industrial society because slavery disproportionately favours agriculture, or is that untrue?

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I don't think there's any connection. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan used slave labor in their factories. I assume that slave economies have tended to be agricultural just because industrialization is so new, and before the 19th Century, every economy was based on agriculture. Since slavery was a backwards way of managing labor and industrialization was progressive, I guess you could hypothesize that the two wouldn't coexist for long, but who knows..?

Verbose said:

Sugar cane originally made plantation slavery profitable in the Caribbean. That ended with the introduction of beet sugar in Europe.

Then the industrial revolution kicked of tremendous demand for cotton, which the US south practicing plantation slavery could provide at profit.

In between those two, it seemed reasonable to suppose the institution would limp on until eventually disolved for lack of profitability.

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Slave labor in the American South didn't stop picking cotton until mechanical cotton pickers became available in the 1950s. They just used alternate means to enslave the labor after 1865.

EgonSpengler said:

I don't think there's any connection. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan used slave labor in their factories.

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Nazi and Showa slavery was a breed different than New World slavery though, considering both essentially were reintroductions of slavery in an industrial society. Prior to that, slavery was practised virtually universally in agricultural and other resource based economies. Slavery as existed in the New World more or less evolved from social stratifications in West-Africa that was transplanted by European colonisers into the Americas after coming into contact with West-African tribesmen.

Owen Glyndwr said:

Yeah, the argument is generally one drug up by traitor apologists in an attempt to justify the extremely unpalatable opinions of their pet nation. It's ok the CSA was a nation founded on slaves because slavery was going the way of the dinosaurs anyway. It's a way for these "historians" to further push the idea that the Civil War was not, in fact, fought over slavery. Of course the ironic part, I suppose is the only part of the "slavery was dying" argument that holds any kind of academic water/interest is that, while slavery was in most respects decidedly not dying, there was a genuine and far-ranging perception on the part of the South writ-large that the institution of slavery was seriously under threat and the North was doing everything in its power to exacerbate that situation. The thought of slavery going away was a terrifying notion, not just to those large plantation-owners who profited directly from the institution, but also to that vast majority of non or small-time slaveholders who felt the entirety of their society and their place in life would be completely upended if slavery went away.

So slavery was not dying, but the idea that slavery was dying certainly was a direct contributor to the start of the Civil War.

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First off, you're making a disgusting mockery of historical study with this kind of hate and bias. Second off, slavery was dying. It wasn't some sustainable economic model. Cash crop economies had become a debt spiral, and you should know that if you've ever read a damn book on it. I'm thoroughly disappointed that a historian with such potential as you would ignore the evidence just to make a "traitor apologist" remark. Shut your mouth.

It was a sustainable model- agrarianism wasn't sustainable, but as long as there is a need for low cost manual labor then slavery would be economically viable, as the forced labor of the USSR showed.

And even if it wasn't it was deeply ingrained into the planter way of life, such that it would have taken several decade of diminishing returns for it to begin dying.

jackelgull said:

It was a sustainable model- agrarianism wasn't sustainable, but as long as there is a need for low cost manual labor then slavery would be economically viable, as the forced labor of the USSR showed.

And even if it wasn't it was deeply ingrained into the planter way of life, such that it would have taken several decade of diminishing returns for it to begin dying.

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Nah, slaves are particularly unskilled and unmotivated, pretty much by definition in chattel slavery. That means if there's any benefit at all to mechanizing some aspect that the slaves once worked, they're not particularly useful for that anymore.

Obviously low wage, unskilled labor jobs will always be there, but unless there are enough of the jobs to make holding a third of your population in bondage worthwhile, then abolition becomes a lot more attractive.

Kaiserguard said:

Nazi and Showa slavery was a breed different than New World slavery though, considering both essentially were reintroductions of slavery in an industrial society. Prior to that, slavery was practised virtually universally in agricultural and other resource based economies. Slavery as existed in the New World more or less evolved from social stratifications in West-Africa that was transplanted by European colonisers into the Americas after coming into contact with West-African tribesmen.

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Errr, no. Slavery was introduced into the Americas to alleviate the fate of the Indios, ironically.

I keep hearing arguments about how Southern slavery would have eventually fizzled out because it simply wasn't economically viable, and so the slaveholders needed to expand slavery to prevent it from dying. This doesn't make much sense. In purely economic terms, chattel slavery seems perfectly viable; you're basically taking a segment of the population and removing their right to be paid or have proper working conditions. The slave household as an economic agent consumes less food, clothing, and shelter, and provides specialized labor on a much more massive scale than a regular workforce. Imagine the total GDP of a slave economy vs a capitalist economy.

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No need to imagine: that's the situation of South vs North in 1861. Regardless of the Civil War slavery was doomed to disappear. It was just a question of when and how.