cotton gin?

1/31/2007 11:00:30 AM

thats too early (although its an example of an innovation increasing demand for slaves)

1/31/2007 11:11:50 AM

steam engines, modern agricultural practices


many southern farm families knew it was heaper to just raise their own kids to do the work


slavery was a dying trend in the south

1/31/2007 11:15:28 AM

i dont know, sharecropping was around for awhile and a lot of times wasnt much different than slavery

1/31/2007 11:21:33 AM

most farm families had built in slaves with their children anyway


have 6 or so kids and put them to work as soon as possible

1/31/2007 11:25:02 AM

Quote :

"the slave trade was over slaves were becoming prohibitively expensive"

Slave trade was over, but that doesn't mean slavery was ending. The thing about slaves are that they produce more slaves, so you don't have to ship them over anymore.

Quote :

"you had to feed, shelter, dress, provide some type of care (because you don't want your slaves to die)and guard them to keep them from leaving"

Yet you get 16 hours of hard labor without any need for good working conditions, it would cost way more for wage labor than what it would cost for subsistent living conditions.

Quote :

"not to mention it's hard to get work done when someone really is only going to do the bare minimum to stay alive"

It's pretty easy considering you get to chose what the bare minimium for them to stay alive is.

Quote :

"have 6 or so kids and put them to work as soon as possible"

Society didn't turn as blind of an eye to someone whipping them to death, plus you can't buy more and sell them.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 11:44 AM. Reason : ]

1/31/2007 11:43:29 AM

http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his311/notes/plantati.htm

Robert Williams Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman completed an
economic study of American slavery in TIME ON THE CROSS: THE
ECOMONICS OF AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY (1974). The following data
(from pages 73-74) compares average slave prices and wages in the
Deep South for the years 1830-1860:

Period Hire Price Average annual
rate of return
1830-1835 127 948 12%
1836-1840
1840-1845 143 722 18.5%
1846-1850 168 926 17%
1851-1855 167 1240 12%
1856-1860 196.5 1658 10.3%

The figures for 1840-1850 show what happens when the price of
slaves dropped--it became cheaper to buy a slave than to hire
one. The only drawback was that it required more up-front
capital to buy a slave, so not everyone could do that.



Looks like it peaked between 1840 and 1850. It also looks like slaves were very expensive. $700-$1200 was BIG money in the mid-19th century. To convert 1860 dollars to 2002 dollars (the closest date I could find), multiply by 19.89. Also, the south was much poorer in this time than it is today. Slaves were well out of reach for all but the wealthiest of southerners. The fact that fewer and fewer people could afford them, coupled with the nationwide abolitionist movement gaining strength at the time and more modern farm equipment, would have killed slavery off anyway.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 12:12 PM. Reason : ,]

1/31/2007 12:10:24 PM

Quote :

"TIME ON THE CROSS: THE ECOMONICS OF AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVERY"

I read that a while back. A major point of the book is that slavery wasn't as bad as popular culture made it out to be in the 20th century. As such, I was really intrigued as to how to take the title.

1/31/2007 12:55:01 PM

Quote :

"Yet you get 16 hours of hard labor without any need for good working conditions, it would cost way more for wage labor than what it would cost for subsistent living conditions."

Yes, but wage labor is more productive than slave labor, and it's said that the extra productivity woulda made up for having to pay wages.

Quote :

"our country has some really shitty history in it's past, some of our ancestors treated people horribly, but the civil war was not fought just over slavery... you can have revisionist PC liberal feel good history all you want, but slavery was dying in the south(and lincoln knew that also) and that was not the reason for the war"

Let's not turn this into a conservative/liberal thing.

Furthermore, dude, the issue of slavery was a big reason for the war. That's not to say the North wanted to get rid of it and the South didn't. It wasn't that simple. But the politics surrounding slavery, new states entering the Union, Lincoln being elected, states' rights etc...all sorta came together to create probably the dumbest war in American history.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 1:18 PM. Reason : sss]

1/31/2007 1:11:15 PM

Quote :

"coupled with the nationwide abolitionist movement gaining strength at the time"

Obviously, if you include ethics in there. But simply economically speaking, it would still be around.

Quote :

"Yes, but wage labor is more productive than slave labor"

You overestimate wage labor. I just have to work hard enough to keep my job, they have to work hard enough to stay alive.

1/31/2007 1:14:15 PM

Quote :

"I just have to work hard enough to keep my job, they have to work hard enough to stay alive."

Slaves just have to work as hard as the slave next to them if they don't want to be whipped. Due to the intrinsic value of a slave I doubt that a punishment of death was very common at all.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 1:20 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2007 1:19:02 PM

^^You don't know what you're talking about.

1/31/2007 1:31:17 PM

Quote :

"Slaves just have to work as hard as the slave next to them if they don't want to be whipped. Due to the intrinsic value of a slave I doubt that a punishment of death was very common at all."

I'd still rather lose my job than be savagely beaten.

1/31/2007 1:36:50 PM

you don't get it

at all

1/31/2007 1:40:39 PM

Quote :

"I'd still rather lose my job than be savagely beaten."

Thats not the issue.

Slaves have to work on par with the other slaves and not fall far enough behind to warrant a beating.

Wage laborers have to work harder than the all of the FOB immigrants that want their job.

1/31/2007 1:43:05 PM

Quote :

"Slaves have to work on par with the other slaves and not fall far enough behind to warrant a beating."

Ok, so a slave is beaten if he doesn't work as hard as possible, thus if he wants to not be beaten. Wage workers don't have to worry about being beaten, thus unless they value their job more than being beaten, they wouldn't work as hard as a slave. Then of course there's the whole wage difference, which even immigrants wouldn't work for what it costs to keep up a slave.

1/31/2007 1:53:57 PM

Quote :

"you don't get it at all"

1/31/2007 1:55:51 PM

very strong arguement

1/31/2007 2:04:53 PM

Quote :

"Ok, so a slave is beaten if he doesn't work as hard as possible"

No.

1/31/2007 2:10:56 PM

Quote :

"Ok, so a slave is beaten if he doesn't work as hard as possible, thus if he wants to not be beaten."

It has nothing to do with whether or not they are doing 100% of what they are capable of. All they have to do is the task that they are given and not do a job that is noticeably worse than the guy next to them.

Quote :

"Wage workers don't have to worry about being beaten, thus unless they value their job more than being beaten, they wouldn't work as hard as a slave."

They are working for their livelihood. If they don't work harder than the person who could replace them then they will lose their job and won't be able to feed their family or survive. In America during the industrial revolution there was no help for anyone who fell through the cracks.

Quote :

"Then of course there's the whole wage difference, which even immigrants wouldn't work for what it costs to keep up a slave."

I'm going to try to find some numbers regarding that. I'm rather curious myself.

1/31/2007 2:12:37 PM

Quote :

"very strong arguement"

every other logical thing I've said apparently makes sense to everyone but you

you just don't get it, nor do you care to get it

1/31/2007 2:18:36 PM

Quote :

"Obviously, if you include ethics in there. But simply economically speaking, it would still be around."

You HAVE to include all factors that were present.
But even economically speaking, it couldn't still be around. No way, no how. There's no viability. There hasn't been for over a century.

1/31/2007 2:19:29 PM

Quote :

"It has nothing to do with whether or not they are doing 100% of what they are capable of"

Sure it does, if someone sees you not working, you get beaten.

Quote :

"If they don't work harder than the person who could replace them then they will lose their job"

Not neccesarily true. It generally takes a good bit of effort to be fired as the company already has a good bit invested in these workers.

Quote :

"If they don't work harder than the person who could replace them then they will lose their job and won't be able to feed their family or survive."

So at worst, they would live in slavelike conditions. Slaves at best live in slavelike conditions.

Quote :

"America during the industrial revolution there was no help for anyone who fell through the cracks."

We're talking about a different part of the country.

Quote :

"I'm going to try to find some numbers regarding that. I'm rather curious myself."

You really don't even need to, just think about it logically. You're only going to pay what you absolutely have to for slave upkeep, so all you need to pay is for the bare meager housing and food. Any less than that and a person wouldn't be able to survive, so how could wage labor even possibly get cheaper than that.

Quote :

"every other logical thing"

What logical thing? That it's cheaper to pay someone to work than it is to own them and have them work for whatever you want them to? Unless you're going to post a real arguement, I'm not going to even bother to acknowledge you any further.

1/31/2007 2:26:22 PM

Quote :

"The work schedule for slaves was from daylight to dark, 6 days per week, with Sunday off under normal circumstances, in order for slaves to do their personal chores. The living expense for each slave averaged about $38.00 per year."

Quote :

"The wage rate paid to construction workers,(mainly Irish), working on he Erie Canal Construction Project from 1817 through 1825, was $.80 and found, (food and lodging), per day. This is assumed as the minimum wage rate for that time period."

Quote :

"Let us say that the slave, He/she, began working in 1811 at age 11 and worked until 1861, giving a total of 50 years labor. For that time, the slave earned $0.80 per day, 6 days per week. This equals $4.80 per week, times 52 weeks per year, which equals pay of $249.60 per year."

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/HRB_SW.HTM

The website isn't very professional looking, but I'm having trouble finding much else to compare.

1/31/2007 2:28:39 PM

Quote :

" our country has some really shitty history in it's past, some of our ancestors treated people horribly, but the civil war was not fought just over slavery... you can have revisionist PC liberal feel good history all you want, but slavery was dying in the south(and lincoln knew that also) and that was not the reason for the war"

While I have my "liberal" history, you have the history that developed out of the civil rights era by southerners. Slavery was shifting from an agricultural base. Sure the amount of slaves in the fields would decrease, but the amount of slaves doing other work would increase. Slaves, had th e practice not been abolished, would have worked the textile mills, etc.

Furthermore, in no civilization or society with slavery did it go to the wayside for economic reasons. Slavery always was abolished over moral reasons. This is one thing you cannot just ignore.

1/31/2007 2:39:45 PM

I haven't ignored it, plenty of abolitionists were against it

and so was alot of the mainstream public

this thread wasn't talking about slaves building railrods out west, digging mines out west... it was about slaves in the south and the civil war

1/31/2007 2:51:14 PM

The point is slavery wouldn't stop for economic reasons alone.

1/31/2007 2:55:33 PM

You are only thinking of slaves as agricultural workers in the south. there are other industrialized tasks that could be done in the south with slave labor. That is the point. Just because it may not have been economically feasible to have slaves work in the fields does not mean it wasn't economically feasible to have slaves do other tasks (read in the south). furthermore, VA while it was witnessing its slave population decrease, still pushed for it to be legal because they were breeding the slaves and selling them further in the south. It produced vasts amounts of money since slaves could no longer be imported.

1/31/2007 2:57:17 PM

and since the supply of fresh slaves was cut off (other than births)

the cost was becoming prohibitively more expensive


hence using kids as a labor force (ahem, factories up north)


the stupid ass war that killed so many people, had less to do with slavery than people make it out to be... because people don't like to hear about everyone not holding hands and getting along, they don't want to know that elected leaders are fucked up sometimes, they want to know their ancestors fought the big bad meanies from the south because they had slaves and that the north and all of it's citizens were well above things as slavery and racism


yay for changing history to qualify reasons for war (sound familiar huh)

I can't imagine being in Lincolns shoes having to make those decisions, but I guess the more things change the more they stay the same, especially in politics


[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 3:05 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2007 2:59:56 PM

north did nothing wrong... dont imply as much or the whole conversation will break down into defensive hand waving

1/31/2007 3:01:26 PM

Quote :

"and since the supply of fresh slaves was cut off (other than births) the cost was becoming prohibitively more expensive"

for new slave owners, but a cash crop for the breeders.

1/31/2007 3:17:21 PM

that wasn't a common thing

1/31/2007 3:21:34 PM

Quote :

"the cost was becoming prohibitively more expensive"

You think it costs more to birth and raise a slave than it would to catch him and ship him across the atlantic and he only has a 75% chance of not dying? They didn't need to ship anymore. Once you've got the seeds, you don't need to buy more.

Quote :

"yay for changing history to qualify reasons for war (sound familiar huh)"

You're arguing agianst a strawman. None of us have taken the position you described. People have said that the war had nothing to do with slavery, and that's simply wrong.

1/31/2007 3:29:38 PM

Quote :

"People have said that the war had nothing to do with slavery, and that's simply wrong."

Just as wrong as proclaiming that the war was fought over slavery.

Sure, slavery was on someones mind. Of course, most southerners did not own slaves. So, when most voted in favor of secession could it have been because most were farmers and Northern Mercantilism was impoverishing farmers? Southern states were democratic after all, even if not everyone could vote.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 3:42 PM. Reason : .,.]

1/31/2007 3:35:53 PM

Quote :

"eriod Hire Price Average annual rate of return 1830-1835 127 948 12% 1836-1840 1840-1845 143 722 18.5% 1846-1850 168 926 17% 1851-1855 167 1240 12% 1856-1860 196.5 1658 10.3%"

This is my point exactly. The rate of return on slavery was dropping.

If you include depreciation and monitoring costs (you have to pay someone to beat the slaves and make sure they don't run away) then you are below 10%

Suppose the rate of return - depreciation - monitoring drops below the rate of interest on bonds, currently about 4.5% but we are now at historic lows. At that point it is more profitable to sell your slave, invest the money in bonds and use the bond interest to hire a worker.

I think you assumption that slave cost was necessarily lower than free person wage is not quite right because there is market risk involved in owning a slave.

Suppose in the extreme that there is an unlimited supply of labor. Then the price of labor will fall to the marginal cost. That is the price of labor will fall to the cost of keeping the laborer alive.

At this point there is no way to save money by buying a laborer. But there is a way to lose money. Suppose there has been a drought and half the crops are destroyed. You only need half as many workers to collect what is left. What are you going to do with your extra slaves?

If you starve them then you loose the money you already paid for them, same if you set them free. But suppose you were only renting their labor. Then you just lay them off at zero cost. When things pick up you hire more.

If the supply of labor is large enough then you can push all of the business risk on to the workers may hiring them rather than buying them.

In short, the advantage of owning a worker is that you capture the worker's surplus. However, if worker surplus is low enough there is no value in owning.


Now yes since WWI worker surplus has been rising almost uninterruptedly, so it seems silly to suggest that there would be no advantage in capturing it. But, that is just the current condition, it is not a necessary condition. Worker surplus can and does fall and in fact almost certainly fell to zero in England during parts of the Industrial Revolution.

Indeed, I think it was the observation of workers with zero surplus that inspired interest in communism. At the time they thought just the opposite, that worker surplus was inherently zero and so only revolution could lead to lasting redistribution between classes.

An ironic hypothesis that I am working on is that improvements in public health lead to collapses in worker surplus because it was more likely that workers would stay alive and reproduce. I think it is pretty well accepted that the decline in birth rates in the Western World is what first lead to the rapid rise in worker surplus and since then the increase in education.

1/31/2007 3:46:32 PM

Quote :

"that wasn't a common thing"

more common than you think.


^^Voting then was not done in a secret ballot form. Individuals had to approach a table and say how they were voting. This caused a lot of coeresive voting. If you lived on individual x property and he was pro-secession, you better vote secession or you were getting booted off. Secession only supported the landed aristocracy of the south. The working class received no benefit from secession.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 3:48 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2007 3:47:38 PM

Quote :

"You think it costs more to birth and raise a slave than it would to catch him and ship him across the atlantic and he only has a 75% chance of not dying? They didn't need to ship anymore. Once you've got the seeds, you don't need to buy more."

Let's not pretend it was particularly easy to have a baby back then or that is now. First, you had to get a female pregnant. Then you had to wait over 9 months--9 months where she could lose the child, 9 months where she couldn't work as hard as the others. And then that child had to be raised--again you lost productivity from those who raised him.

1/31/2007 3:59:36 PM

Quote :

"Furthermore, in no civilization or society with slavery did it go to the wayside for economic reasons. Slavery always was abolished over moral reasons. This is one thing you cannot just ignore."

I guess the USA is the exception. Because we all know slavery in the US was not abolished for moral reasons.

1/31/2007 4:03:08 PM

I guess that explains why you think that everyone that isn't poor or lower middle class is somehow extremely wealthy too

you're not making sense here yo

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 4:04 PM. Reason : ^^^ ]

1/31/2007 4:04:26 PM

during that time period it was a large split. there was no middle class in the agrarian south.

Quote :

" I guess the USA is the exception. Because we all know slavery in the US was not abolished for moral reasons."

the emancipation proclamation did not free a single slave. The 13th amendment did and that was strictly for moral reasons.

[Edited on January 31, 2007 at 4:08 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2007 4:07:02 PM

and the south wasn't spilling over with your "gone with the wind" types either

1/31/2007 4:15:46 PM

Quote :

"The working class received no benefit from secession."

Well, secession got rid of the import tarriffs, providing cheap goods from England and higher prices for agricultural goods. Sounds like the average farmer would make out good with this change.

1/31/2007 4:40:18 PM

Quote :

"and the south wasn't spilling over with your "gone with the wind" types either"

The problem is, these gone with the wind types had the land. Sure they weren't in the majority, but they controlled the state governments.

^the south's biggest problem is they overestimated their ability to make money from cotton and such. England the biggest importer of cotton at that time began to receive the majority of its cotton from India for much less. Secession hurt the working class farmers of the south because their largest purchasers before the war were northern industrialists. The global market was not in effect then as it is now.

1/31/2007 4:49:06 PM

Quote :

"I guess the USA is the exception. Because we all know slavery in the US was not abolished for moral reasons."

Bingo! Lincoln emancipated only the slaves in the states that had seceded from the union. Slaves in those states that had not seceded were not freed. The Emancipation Proclamation was not intended to free all slaves, it was intended to economically hurt the south. Of course, it didn't work immediately, because at the time the south was a different country and therefore not subject to that law.

1/31/2007 4:59:20 PM

^ that's been adressed already ... move along

1/31/2007 5:03:21 PM

That does not really make sense. England will buy whatever cotton is cheaper and that Southern Farmers were being yanked off the world market by tariffs is kind of relevant.

England shifted its source away from America and to India because it had to, not because Indian cotton was automatically cheaper. Southern Americans were subsistence farmers, they had no other options available, so they would take whatever price was offered on the world market. But they were being forbidden from even doing that, thanks to America's mercantilist policies.

1/31/2007 5:04:27 PM

You really have no understanding of the British empire do you? Trade companies with in the Empire were given monopolies on certain comodities. Cotton was one of them. Even after secession, Britain was getting cotton cheaper from India than it was from the southern states. The south over estimated the value of their cotton.

1/31/2007 5:08:38 PM

I think you're mixing up your eras. At this time in British History that was not the case. No Trade Company had a monopoly on cotton because England was a major consumer of American cotton as well as other commodities.

1/31/2007 5:16:02 PM

I'm not confusing my eras. Look at cotton production in India. during this period, India produced more cotton than the south and did it cheaper because of the monopolies.

1/31/2007 5:21:39 PM

That is quite contradictory. "Monopolies" do not equal "Cheaper"

1/31/2007 5:26:16 PM