I understand all that. But you're totally missing the point. Just because we don't see the effect of slave labor in modern industry today, just because what the slaves "helped to build prior to 1864 is dead and buried" doesn't mean slavery has no impact on our lives today.

A lot of men got rich off slavery in the early days of this nation. This wealth allowed them and their children to enjoy upper class status--pursue leisure, get educations, study and learn about the things that interested to them. Were there other ways to achieve wealth? Of course. But in the absence of slavery, Thomas Jefferson's family would not have been in a position to send him to college, and who knows what this country might be like today without him...without slavery? And that's just one very simple, very obvious thing. It sets the stage where slavery has a positive role, but there are negative impacts too, of course.

RedGuard is right, and you are wrong.

And I have no clue what interest you have in denying the fact that we enjoy the benefits of a very special country built on slave labor.

It's just funny to me. I bet you would totally concede that we enjoy benefits today due to the lives of a few folks like Thomas Jefferson, but the lives of thousands of slaves? Nope, no impact whatsoever. And I'm gonna using economics to prove it!!!

[Edited on March 30, 2007 at 7:53 AM. Reason : ]

3/30/2007 7:45:08 AM

Quote :

"white people kill me with this. u do realize every thing that has happend in the past effects today right? your life would be totally different if you greatx4 grandfather was a slave (well u'd be black and probly wouldn't have posted this but i mean other than that) now u shouldn't feel bad, guitly or ashammed in the least for it. u shouldn't apologize, lose sleep or feel obligated to hug a black guy. just realize even though it's not infront of you, those events did have some impact on making your life the way it is today no matter how small a differnce it may be."

This is undeniable, however, what should white people do about it? If white people don't have a responsibility to "hug a black guy" then what should they do? I highly doubt all the black community wants is for white people to acknowledge the well-known fact that slavery had an impact on today's society.

Anyway you swing it, our generation shouldn't be held accountable in any way, shape, or form.

So again I ask, what do black people want done about it?

3/30/2007 7:57:55 AM

And upon reading the rest of this thread...

Reparations is a terrible idea... I could literally write ten pages full of all the reasons it wouldn't work and shouldn't happen.

And, let's not forget there was such a thing as black slave owners as someone mentioned earlier in the thread. This whole discussion is an example of the problem. We discuss things such as reparations instead of discussing other social issues that really matter.

It's all water under the bridge... Slavery happened, period. Move on...

3/30/2007 8:06:26 AM

if you go back far enough it is almost guaranteed that someone you are a descendant of owned a slave at some point or another

no slaves now, no slave owners now.

lets move on.

3/30/2007 8:10:16 AM

I see both sides of it


what is really left that slaves built?

some houses, maybe a building or two, maybe some barns

but most slave built infrastructure was destroyed or burned during the war anyway

on the other side....

it's a shame that we as a nation have slavery in our past, thankfully we've been able to rise above the misdeeds that were committed not that long ago in the grand scheme of things

I have no idea if my ancestors owned slaves, I was adopted

I know the family I was raised with never could have afforded slaves back in the day

3/30/2007 8:18:34 AM

^You're adopted? Seriously?

3/30/2007 10:15:39 AM

Hey, some black students might find out...

their ancestors weren't slaves. Just sayin'

3/30/2007 12:07:32 PM

Quote :

"But in the absence of slavery, Thomas Jefferson's family would not have been in a position to send him to college"

Bridget, I'm sorry to break this to you but the elimination of slavery did not eliminate this nation's class of elites. We have rich people even today, so I suspect Thomas Jefferson's family would have still been quite rich if not for slavery. Yes, they would not have bought slaves with their wealth, probably instead spending the money on more land to be sharecropped. If Adam Smith and I are right then without slavery Thomas Jefferson's family would have been even richer, reflecting the increased wealth of the society at large.

Quote :

"Just because we don't see the effect of slave labor in modern industry today, just because what the slaves "helped to build prior to 1864 is dead and buried" doesn't mean slavery has no impact on our lives today."

Like I tried to explain to you, slavery had a huge impact upon our lives today: We as a society are noticeably poorer today because of slavery. We have all been indelibly harmed by slavery's effects upon history. Millions of human beings had their productivity sapped by slavery, individuals which could have boosted the wealth of society and driven effort into technological development. Adam Smith measured the productive difference between a share-cropper and a slave at about 2 to 1, if I remember correctly.

Follow the logic:
1. Slavery substantially reduces the productivity of individuals classified as slaves
2. Reduced productivity of a large number of individuals means society as a whole is less productive
3. a less productive society must devote more human resources towards basic necessities such a food, clothing, and shelter
4. This shifts effort away from technological development which, by all reasoning, is a luxury investment in the future
5. Reduced technological development leads to reduced productivity of future generations
6. Return to step 3 above as this effect is cumulative and compounding: as each generation, deprived of technological advancement, is thus itself less capable of devoting human resources towards technological advancement

And it is not just on average, every single one of us is poorer today. Our rich today may appear well off, but compare them to the rich of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. As society as a whole gets wealthier it becomes easier for the uber rich to build larger fortunes.

3/30/2007 12:21:25 PM

go back to africa

3/30/2007 12:27:06 PM

3/30/2007 1:08:38 PM

IF THE DINOSAURS WERENT SO DUMB NONE OF US WOULD BE HERE

3/30/2007 1:09:33 PM

Quote :

"^You're adopted? Seriously?"

yep, born May 02... was "home" by June 5

I'm pretty damn thankful for it also

3/30/2007 1:25:09 PM

Quote :

"Bridget, I'm sorry to break this to you but the elimination of slavery did not eliminate this nation's class of elites."

I'm aware.

Quote :

"We have rich people even today, so I suspect Thomas Jefferson's family would have still been quite rich if not for slavery."

Okay, you're right. His family was loaded before joining the planter class. My bad.

But you have to see what I mean about how at the time slaves supported this country, like RedGuard said, "kickstarted" this country, and it's upon that foundation that we built an initial economy, got more people to move here, broke free from England, etc...and we enjoy the benefits of that today.

Quote :

"If Adam Smith and I are right then without slavery Thomas Jefferson's family would have been even richer, reflecting the increased wealth of the society at large. Like I tried to explain to you, slavery had a huge impact upon our lives today: We as a society are noticeably poorer today because of slavery. We have all been indelibly harmed by slavery's effects upon history. Millions of human beings had their productivity sapped by slavery, individuals which could have boosted the wealth of society and driven effort into technological development. Adam Smith measured the productive difference between a share-cropper and a slave at about 2 to 1, if I remember correctly. Follow the logic: 1. Slavery substantially reduces the productivity of individuals classified as slaves 2. Reduced productivity of a large number of individuals means society as a whole is less productive 3. a less productive society must devote more human resources towards basic necessities such a food, clothing, and shelter 4. This shifts effort away from technological development which, by all reasoning, is a luxury investment in the future 5. Reduced technological development leads to reduced productivity of future generations 6. Return to step 3 above as this effect is cumulative and compounding: as each generation, deprived of technological advancement, is thus itself less capable of devoting human resources towards technological advancement"

I'm not retarded. I understand this concept. I came to understand this without having to read about it from folks like Adam Smith. I think it's fabulous you know it so well. But there are obvious flaws in this line of thinking. You assume that, in the absence of slavery, there would be all these Africans here ready to work free labor. But they'd still be in Africa. A huge portion of labor, millions of slaves, would just POOF never exist here. How you can argue that we did and do not benefit from that then and now makes no sense to me. It clearly kickstarted this country.

[Edited on March 30, 2007 at 3:06 PM. Reason : sss]

3/30/2007 3:06:13 PM

Bridget, a country does not get kick-started. An economy exists whenever free individuals engage in productive behavior.

Now, the ships that brought slaves over here could have instead been hauling over indentured servants from Europe (or even Africa if we insist). A lot of effort went into getting these people here; if we eliminate slavery from history that human effort still exists.

Now, if we accept the 2 for 1 productivity ratio between slaves and freemen, then a land owner in America should be willing to pay more for an african sharecropper than a similar land owner is willing to pay for an african-slave.

Regretfully, at the time, bringing over freemen from Africa was not a socially acceptable practice. White people were racist and treated immigrants poorly, even white people from Europe. An african sharecropper was quite likely to be murdered before the land owner could recollect his investment.

As such, that the country was build with african-slaves does not mean it was the only way to do it. It is my assertion that it was the least efficient means possible. If, instead, slavery and nativism were banished from the land then free immigrants, predominantly from soul-crushing Europe, would have flooded the country much earlier and much faster and been much more productive at the same time; making both then and their investors better off.

Of course, there was another problem preventing widespread immigration. Cross ocean transport at the turn of the 18th century was very expensive. Slave owners could afford this expense because they had the force of law to prevent their slaves from leaving before they had paid back the investment (even a slave getting to the north was likely to be returned). Such laws were less enforced against indentured servants (capped by law at seven years, which often did not produce a good profit). As such, there was a legal failure in the law: a slave is guaranteed to eventually be profitable: just keep them longer. But an indentured servant is capped at 7 years. If, instead, the law allowed investors to buy transport and demand payment in cash instead of labor then the individuals purchased could have been made the work as long as was necessary to pay his debts.

3/30/2007 3:52:05 PM

Quote :

"u do realize every thing that has happend in the past effects today right?"

You mean like the great depression that wiped my family clean of any wealth that may have been obtained during the era of slavery?

I have no idea whether my family owned slaves, but I do know that my family obtained their wealth without having anything handed to them. No land, no money, no superior education. I do not feel any debt or any guilt as a result of slavery.

3/30/2007 3:53:19 PM

Quote :

"in the absence of slavery"

they used sharecroppers and indentured servants from europe

3/30/2007 3:55:18 PM

the cocaine trade paid for much of miami's current skyline

should we arrange some type of reparations there

3/30/2007 3:56:18 PM

^ no it didn't

3/30/2007 3:57:56 PM

yes it did

3/30/2007 4:05:51 PM

3/30/2007 4:14:15 PM

its more than just her face

3/30/2007 4:15:18 PM

Quote :

"Bridget, a country does not get kick-started. An economy exists whenever free individuals engage in productive behavior. Now, the ships that brought slaves over here could have instead been hauling over indentured servants from Europe (or even Africa if we insist). A lot of effort went into getting these people here; if we eliminate slavery from history that human effort still exists. Now, if we accept the 2 for 1 productivity ratio between slaves and freemen, then a land owner in America should be willing to pay more for an african sharecropper than a similar land owner is willing to pay for an african-slave. Regretfully, at the time, bringing over freemen from Africa was not a socially acceptable practice. White people were racist and treated immigrants poorly, even white people from Europe. An african sharecropper was quite likely to be murdered before the land owner could recollect his investment. As such, that the country was build with african-slaves does not mean it was the only way to do it. It is my assertion that it was the least efficient means possible. If, instead, slavery and nativism were banished from the land then free immigrants, predominantly from soul-crushing Europe, would have flooded the country much earlier and much faster and been much more productive at the same time; making both then and their investors better off. Of course, there was another problem preventing widespread immigration. Cross ocean transport at the turn of the 18th century was very expensive. Slave owners could afford this expense because they had the force of law to prevent their slaves from leaving before they had paid back the investment (even a slave getting to the north was likely to be returned). Such laws were less enforced against indentured servants (capped by law at seven years, which often did not produce a good profit). As such, there was a legal failure in the law: a slave is guaranteed to eventually be profitable: just keep them longer. But an indentured servant is capped at 7 years. If, instead, the law allowed investors to buy transport and demand payment in cash instead of labor then the individuals purchased could have been made the work as long as was necessary to pay his debts."

But we did have slavery. And we benefited from that system of slavery. If it had been no slaves and more indentured servants, then we would have benefited from that. But it wasn't. It was slaves. Millions of people worked as slaves in this country. And, because you think there was a better way to do it (which I've acknowledged there is), you write off the work of those millions of people and claim we enjoy no benefits as a result of their labor. That's insane.

Anyway, this argument is making me uncomfortable, as these are real lives, real people that we're reducing to ratios and dollar figures. So you keep on fellating Adam Smith in your economic wonderland--I won't bother you no more.

3/30/2007 11:29:21 PM

Quote :

"As such, that the country was build with african-slaves does not mean it was the only way to do it. It is my assertion that it was the least efficient means possible. If, instead, slavery and nativism were banished from the land then free immigrants, predominantly from soul-crushing Europe, would have flooded the country much earlier and much faster and been much more productive at the same time; making both then and their investors better off. "

The problem with this vs. slavery though is that wealth would have taken longer to concentrate in one place. On things large plantations did was to start businesses to support their operations of various kinds. Lots of immigrants from Europe would have merely been subsistent farmers, and it would have taken longer for new technologies to develop because people would be out farming all the time. Why do you think developed societies have more frivolous cultural aspects? It's because we have time for those things. Slavery only helped our inventive spirits.

Quote :

"Now, the ships that brought slaves over here could have instead been hauling over indentured servants from Europe (or even Africa if we insist). A lot of effort went into getting these people here; if we eliminate slavery from history that human effort still exists. "

IIRC, the British gov. DID give people transport to the New World if they were going to settle the place up. That's primarily how the brits did things... give people cheap land to start new lives so they could quickly spread their influence. The use of slaves is a side effect of this, not a competing scenario.

Quote :

" Follow the logic: 1. Slavery substantially reduces the productivity of individuals classified as slaves["

You'd be surprised how motivating death and whipping can be. I don't accept the assertion that slaves would innately be less productive.

Quote :

"2. Reduced productivity of a large number of individuals means society as a whole is less productive"

I don't see how this item is relevant. Slaves weren't counted as humans back then, so their productivity level doesn't factor in to society as a whole. You can count them as 1 single person, really, with an extremely large productivity, because they don't matter. If someone had 1000 slaves and 1000 cotton plants, and each slave only had to pick 1 plant, that's not different than having one slave pick 1000 plants, if the one slave gets the job done. The net benefit to society is the same, because slaves weren't considered people. They could be beaten, raped, and killed, and people mostly didn't care because they were slaves.

Quote :

"3. a less productive society must devote more human resources towards basic necessities such a food, clothing, and shelter 4. This shifts effort away from technological development which, by all reasoning, is a luxury investment in the future"

Having free time because slaves did your work could only free you up to pursue "luxuries" like inventing things.

Quote :

"5. Reduced technological development leads to reduced productivity of future generations 6. Return to step 3 above as this effect is cumulative and compounding: as each generation, deprived of technological advancement, is thus itself less capable of devoting human resources towards technological advancement""

Considering how rich and luxurious our lives are, I don't see how you can believe this. We clearly, compared to the rest of the world, haven't been damaged my slavery. While correlation doesn't show causation, we have no cause to believe that slavery hurt us.

3/30/2007 11:58:13 PM

Quote :

"You'd be surprised how motivating death and whipping can be. I don't accept the assertion that slaves would innately be less productive."

Look at it another way moron. Imagine how hard you would work if income taxes were raised to 100%. Sure, the man drops by every now and then to make sure you are working; but as long as no one tells him he has no way of knowing you are slacking off. So, whipping you is worthless. It is a classic principle-agent problem: the people that are in the fields every day and therefore have all the information have no incentive to utilize it. On the contrary, they have an interest in thwarting their masters. This is why communal farming in the Soviet Union never worked; it was a lack of incentives.

Quote :

"Slaves weren't counted as humans back then, so their productivity level doesn't factor in to society as a whole."

eh? What are you, a moron? Machines aren't people either, yet if I managed to get our robots to produce twice as much with the same inputs you better believe that would have an impact upon society. That would mean food, cars, housing, and computers suddenly all become cheaper. The rich build larger mansions, the poor buy their first house or car, etc. In the end, it does not matter how the bulk of humanity produces what it produces, what matters is that we must produce if we wish to consume. And finding a way to produce twice as much stuff with the given resources substantially improves things.

Quote :

"Having free time because slaves did your work could only free you up to pursue "luxuries" like inventing things."

Or, instead of slaves, you have sharecroppers do all your work, produce twice as much cotton, and have cash to go along with your free time for your pursuit of invention.

Quote :

"But we did have slavery. And we benefited from that system of slavery. If it had been no slaves and more indentured servants, then we would have benefited from that. But it wasn't. It was slaves. Millions of people worked as slaves in this country. And, because you think there was a better way to do it (which I've acknowledged there is), you write off the work of those millions of people and claim we enjoy no benefits as a result of their labor. That's insane."

We enjoy benefits compared to all of them committing suicide or dying in a plague. But, as of 1819 no more slaves were brought in from Africa, so your argument of population importation falls flat at this point. If slavery was abolished in 1819 we today would be markedly richer, more developed, and more advanced.

I don't know why you equate effort with success; that is insane. Workers in today's third world work substantially harder than industrialized workers, but have little to show for it. That is what slavery did: it expended the immense effort of millions of human beings to accomplish less. They did not do it out of ignorance: mankind had known for 400 years that serfdom (domestic slavery) was unproductive. That is how serfdom was abolished in Europe: while serfs were barely surviving on their production, freedmen had enough left over to buy the freedom of both themselves and their fellow man. As my favorite author put it, we did not acquire our freedom through revolution or stunning oratory, we bought and paid for it.

My point is not to demean the victims of slavery or serfdom, on the contrary. My point is that we are all victims of slavery. We owe the institution of slavery no thanks whatsoever. While we obviously owe thanks to the boatmen that brought Africans to America, that they were then enslaved upon arrival was a reduction.

Quote :

"Anyway, this argument is making me uncomfortable, as these are real lives, real people that we're reducing to ratios and dollar figures."

This is a matter of history, I am trying to negate a common claim about slavery in this country's history and my only weapon is science. Forgive me for trying to demonstrate logically that slavery is never good for anyone at anytime over the long-term. How much gold do you think your 15th century ancestors paid for your freedom? Dollar figures often matter more to real people than rhetoric.

3/31/2007 1:46:12 AM

Quote :

"Look at it another way moron. Imagine how hard you would work if income taxes were raised to 100%. Sure, the man drops by every now and then to make sure you are working; but as long as no one tells him he has no way of knowing you are slacking off. So, whipping you is worthless. It is a classic principle-agent problem: the people that are in the fields every day and therefore have all the information have no incentive to utilize it. On the contrary, they have an interest in thwarting their masters. This is why communal farming in the Soviet Union never worked; it was a lack of incentives. "

If slave labor didn't work, what reason did so many people around the world have for utilizing it? In order for the system to work as you say it can without slaves, it would have to be designed from the ground up without slaves in mind, which means re-writing history back a thousand years.

Quote :

"Machines aren't people either, yet if I managed to get our robots to produce twice as much with the same inputs you better believe that would have an impact upon society."

Yes, but you wouldn't count those robots as members of society, would you? I assumed you were making a mathematical argument on slaves in society at the time.

Quote :

"Or, instead of slaves, you have sharecroppers do all your work, produce twice as much cotton, and have cash to go along with your free time for your pursuit of invention. "

Where would these sharecroppers come from? What mechanism of support would they need? The sharecroppers likely would have needed more money, food, space, and freedom than you can give the slaves.

Why pay 1 share cropper to do the work that 5 slaves can do at half the cost (note: I have no idea what the cost of owning a slave is vs. a share cropper, but I can see it easily being less)?

3/31/2007 2:02:24 AM

The name, sharecropper, implies what those costs will be. A sharecropper gets a share of the final crop. Historically the share has been half. As for costs, think about it: you don't need to stop a sharecropper from running away, he wants to get his share at harvest time. So there is no need to hire a slave driver to watch them. No need to buy chains (iron was expensive). No need to chase down slaves that ran away.

Quote :

"If slave labor didn't work, what reason did so many people around the world have for utilizing it?"

People around the world repeatedly utilize systems and processes that do not work. Communist Cuba and North Korea are utilizing a means of economic organization that everyone knows doesn't work. Why? Sometimes ignorance, sometimes hate. The white man did not care if slaves would be more productive as sharecroppers because prejudice blinds people to economic reality.

3/31/2007 9:54:40 AM

Quote :

" Fogel's and Engerman's research led them to conclude that investments in slaves generated high rates of return, masters held slaves for profit motives rather than for prestige, and slavery thrived in cities and rural areas alike. They also found that antebellum Southern farms were 35 percent more efficient overall than Northern ones and that slave farms in the New South were 53 percent more efficient than free farms in either North or South. "

This seems to suggest that slaves were more efficient in production that other forms of labor for the time.

Quote :

" One potent piece of evidence supporting the notion that slavery provides pecuniary benefits is this: slavery replaces other labor when it becomes relatively cheaper. In the early U.S. colonies, for example, indentured servitude was common. As the demand for skilled servants (and therefore their wages) rose in England, the cost of indentured servants went up in the colonies. At the same time, second-generation slaves became more productive than their forebears because they spoke English and did not have to adjust to life in a strange new world. Consequently, the balance of labor shifted away from indentured servitude and toward slavery. "

And it seems that indentured servants were commonly used BEFORE slaves, and slaves replaced them.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us

3/31/2007 1:02:01 PM

Sure, like I said, indentured servants had to be given up after seven years. Even then, an indentured servant is just like a slave: he reaps none of what he sowed.

And I at no point argued slavery was not profitable for the present slave owners: even at half productivity they are still producing for their masters and most of that is profit. But the profits for slave owners do not exceed the losses incurred by society at a whole.

3/31/2007 1:50:30 PM

Quote :

"Sure, like I said, indentured servants had to be given up after seven years. Even then, an indentured servant is just like a slave: he reaps none of what he sowed. "

How is that?

Indentured servants would have been working to pay off their passage and for the use of resources they were given to start a new life.

They would be kind of like interns. I would think this would make them similar to sharecroppers as far as work output. At the least, they shouldn't be less efficient than slaves.

3/31/2007 2:30:02 PM

Why? They get none of what they produce: their owner gets 100% of the crop. And their service is time limited: no matter how hard they work their service is for seven years. Sure, they get to look forward to future liberty and they have no reason to particularly dislike their masters, but the difference is sleight.

3/31/2007 2:54:53 PM

3/31/2007 4:47:08 PM