Irish Caesar
Yellow Jacket
still - the cotton/tobacco/whatever economy isn't completely rigid. All slavery allowed the South to do was to harvest a previously difficult crop to the point where it became the STAPLE crop.
Agreed, that it wasn't good for the economy. They had a very good thing going through the 1850's, though, but an "interruption in supply" caused them to lose their dominance in the world cotton market.
Obviously, it's impossible to say what the Southern economy would have looked like without slavery, as slavery was in place in British North America before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth.
Now sharecropping is essentially the same as slavery. The owners often didn't pay their workers and expected the exact same sort of discipline and obedience that they expected under slavery. So that doesn't get rid of the feeling of unrest and anger.
My statement had nothing to do with unrest or anger; but imagine this scenario: you are a plantation owner and need workers. Do you buy the workers and provide for their sustenance while paying them nothing--and still having an interest in their basic health, or do you pay them as little as possible but also no longer provide for their living--and not care at all what happens to them if they get sick or get injured on the job? Obviously both are repugnant, which is why it's a completely amoral scenario.