The bright side of slavery

Discreet, it will help if you have some more information. The American colonies did not dominate the world tobacco market from 1650 to 1800 because they used slave labor. In fact, for one hundred of those 150 years, slaves were a negligible portion of the labor force. America dominated the world tobacco market because of the huge scale upon which tobacco was cultivated in the colonies (and later the newly minted United States). Elsewhere in the world, small-holders grew tobacco and sold it locally. Local buyers might amass relatively small amounts for export. A single Virginia planter could haul down his landing on the Rappahanock more tobacco at the end of a season than most countries exported from their entire production.

Similarly, when the South switched to the monoculture of cotton, they dominated the world market because no one else was producing for export even a significant fraction the cotton being produced in the United States at that time. Europe does not produce tobacco (yes, certainly it is grown there, but there was never a vast monoculture industry in tobacco there as there was in America)--the same holds true for cotton. Therefore, the South could get very wealthy through a process which was destoying the local forests and exhausting the soil, and they could keep doing it until they ran out of new land to clear--this was similar to the situation with the Roman latifundia, in that those were viable so long as an expanding Empire provided markets for their production. Finding new land only became a problem in the 1840's. And that was when the political situation in the United States became very tense, and a horrible battle was waged over the admission of each new state to the Union, because the South sought new land onto which they could transplant slave-driven monoculture. However, thousands of small-holders could have produced the cash crops just as well as could slaves, and had an incentive to work harder than slaves did, and to produce a better product--something for which slaves had absolutely no incentive.

Edit: To put it in simpler terms, it was the choice to create a monoculture agricultural industry, first in tobacco, and then in cotton, which made for huge export profits. It would have happened without the slaves, so long as the focus was on monoculture of a cash crop.

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Quote:

In the western portion of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago, huge slave-driven enterprises were set up, known as latifundia, which produced the entire range of low-end consumer commidities and goods in demand: wine, olive oil, grain, pottery, cloth, and a host of other products. As a result, the small-holder and the small craftsman were driven out of business.

...sounds like Walmart to me...

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heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .

not really funny, though, is it . . .

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Messing with those little mom-and-pop operations, like what the Kresges have...

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And who did the Kreges run out of business?

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He means they were the ones who were run out of business, Boss . . .

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tongue in groove in cheek

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groovin' cheek to cheek . . .

i mean, you know, that song, Dancin' Cheek to Cheek, you know the one . . .

nevermind

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trying not to be cheeky; will keep tongue-in-groove joke to self.

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Problem is that dirty minds are really easy to read...

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Seems to me that the Kresges must have run some smaller enterprises out of business, right? And so it goes.

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Discreet,

Does this mean that I can make you a slave and give you a free candy bar every day?

I promise I'll keep you at your current standard of living, and I'll even increase it by forcing you to eat a candy bar. Then I can say "Yes she's a slave but I improved her lifestyle, looks"

Okay, lets up the ante', how about you become a slave, but in exchange you get free health care.

Then we can say: "Oh yes, she's a slave but gosh she is better off because she has free health care now!"

***

I think I know what you are getting at, but this one doesn't work.

I think even if was true that there living conditions were worse (and I don't believe it is true),

I think most humans would choose freedom over a possibly higher standard of living in slavery.

***

And as for your argument "Slavery helped the USA make economic progress" ....well that sucks beyond belief.

Perhaps if you become my slave that would help me make economic progress. Since this is true, its okay that I make you a slave, right?

I too give you credit for being brave enough to put these thoughts up there, but jeez this philosophy sucks on so many levels I don't even want to get started. So flawed, I don't want to start.

Lets put it this way. Assume you have a family. Someone comes and kills a few of them, rapes a few more, and takes the rest into slavery and tortures them. But lets assume that they're standard of living goes up (but we can't really prove that).

Would you be fine with the fact your family became slaves, because according to the accountants their standard of living increased?

Reminds me of a cross between KKK and Nazis or something.

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Lol maybe im wrong in assuming that free labor helped the us grow industrially but wherver i read and my teacher agreed that as bad as slavery was it did add a huge contribution to out country. We were able to produce so much more and make so much more money off our products because of cheap labor. Lust like sweat shops...you make more money with a cheap labor force. What is your proof that slavery didn't benefit the economy send me some good links. I havn;t seen any

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Discreet wrote:

Lol maybe im wrong in assuming that free labor helped the us grow industrially but wherver i read and my teacher agreed that as bad as slavery was it did add a huge contribution to out country. We were able to produce so much more and make so much more money off our products because of cheap labor. Lust like sweat shops...you make more money with a cheap labor force. What is your proof that slavery didn't benefit the economy send me some good links. I havn;t seen any

WHO makes more money with sweatshops and/or slavery? A few -- a very few -- people become millionaires, sure. But it certainly does not increase the over-all standard of living. And it is this standard of living which we measure via the GDP when we speak of wealthy countries as opposed to poor countries. A country is not considered rich if all the wealth it has is in the hands of an elite minority while the labor force lives in abject poverty. This is why Brazil, contrary to an earlier contention of yours, is nor considered a rich country by any means. It is one of the poorest countries in the Western hem isphere in spite of its abundance of natural resources. The common people are dirt poor. And that's what we measure -- the average income of the population, taken as a whole, not the annual income of a few billinaires.

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Discreet wrote:

What is your proof that slavery didn't benefit the economy send me some good links. I havn;t seen any

Discreet wrote:

. . .as slavery was i think you could argue that it actually benefited african americans in todays society. . . . Slaves had a very hard lifestyle but it was no worse then if they had been left in Africa. . . . Life was not paradise in the US but slaves were fed and clothed and in a sense were better off. . . .

I did not claim that it did not benefit the economy of the slaveowners in the USA. I believe it did that.

I do claim that slavery did not benefit the slaves or their native countries. That was your initial claim.

Slavery benefit economy of slaveowners and whites in USA? Yes

Slavery benefit the slaves or their native countries? No

Please don't try to twist your statements when you have a problem with the response.

Where is your proof that slavery benefitted the slaves or their native countries?

And if we are going to undertake a serious proposition such as slavery, I would like ironclad indisputable proof it benefits them and that it does not have any negative side effects.

Waiting...tap, tap, tap

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So you think america still would have thrived even with out free labor. That farmers and their family members could produce as much crops as slaves did. The reason they were referred to as "cash crops" was because they were the driving factor in the economy in the south there was a constant demmand for tobacco back in england.

It seems the US was built on cheap labor forces whether it be cheap labor forces in the south producing enough crops to sell on a global market or having Asian immigrants build railroads linking the East to the West. The asians (I think it was mainly chinese) suffered many causualties because of the dangers of nitro glycerine.ANd they had to be hoisted up in and place nitro into rock sides to clear ways for the rail lines

It seems that most of the great feats in the world were accomplished by slaves.(i.e the pyramids) Im not saying whether i think its right or wrong im just making an observation

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Discreet wrote:

. . .as slavery was i think you could argue that it actually benefited african americans in todays society. . . . Slaves had a very hard lifestyle but it was no worse then if they had been left in Africa. . . . Life was not paradise in the US but slaves were fed and clothed and in a sense were better off. . . .

I believe you are making (at least) 2 separate assertions in your post.

1. Slavery benefitted the US Economy.

2. Slavery benefitted the slaves and their native countries.

I agree with number 1 above.

I completely disagree with #2 above.

And it seems like you don't really separate the two statements above in your mind?

Can you see the difference between #1 & #2 above?

And the troubling part seems to be that you sort of say: "Since slavery benefitted the US economy, and it may have had a few isolated benefits for a few slaves somewhere among the thousands that were kidnapped, tortured and killed, its not so bad.

***

But I want to keep this simple so if we are going to debate, we know what we are debating.

I agree with you that slavery helped the US Economy.

But I do not agree that it helped the slaves or their native countries.

Please send good links with proof that it helped the slaves and their native countries.

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Discreet wrote:

Lol maybe im wrong in assuming that free labor[/size] helped the us grow industrially . . . etc., . . . (emphasis added)

What makes you think slavery constitutes "free labor?" That's an awfully absurd contention to make. Additonally, the slaves were not engaged in industrial pursuits, their entire purpose was devoted to agricultural monoculture.

As for sending you links, i didn't learn history online, i read it in books. I've been reading it in books for nearly forty years. I have already suggested to you the papers of George Washington for a detailed examination of what we call today the cost-benefit ratio of slave labor. If you have sufficient saavy, maybe you can find that online. Otherwise, i might recommend to you a less taxing solution. Go to any large, well-stocked library (such as one finds at a university) and get a book entitled George Washington: The Indispensible Man by a gentleman named Flexner. Find the part of this biography (it's in four volumes, but i believe the title i have here given you is for the one volume abridgement) which deals with what George did after he resigned his commission in the Virginia militia and returned to Mount Vernon (1758). It will help you to understand an edifice of commerce, enslavement, monoculture and mercantilism which is light years away in complexity from the simplistic terms in which you are attempting to cast this.

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Im not trying to raise tensions but i had another thought for you to think about.... If you think of history in the sense of darwinism and that "the strong survive," and compare that to societies. Could i argue that because we were a better society we were able to conquer the indians and use africans and slaves. And in part making us as a whole a stronger society. As many bad things as we did to the these societies can you argue that we are better off today because we brought so many new ideas and opportunities to them and they too shared in ideas. Showing us how to farm in the case of indians and slaves bringing us gospel.

I think that this is a bad theory though because i think that is what the nazis used to justify the killing of the jews....

Just wanna hear your thoughts though anyone every thought about social darwinism>

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Discreet wrote:

Im not trying to raise tensions but i had another thought for you to think about.... If you think of history in the sense of darwinism and that "the strong survive," and compare that to societies. Could i argue that because we were a better society we were able to conquer the indians and use africans and slaves. And in part making us as a whole a stronger society. As many bad things as we did to the these societies can you argue that we are better off today because we brought so many new ideas and opportunities to them and they too shared in ideas. Showing us how to farm in the case of indians and slaves bringing us gospel.

I think that this is a bad theory though because i think that is what the nazis used to justify the killing of the jews....

Just wanna hear your thoughts though anyone every thought about social darwinism>

This is a lazy, easy philosophy.

Sure, it has its grain of truth and we are mammals, and blah blah blah.

By the same token, if someone shoots you in the head today for the $20 in your pocket, everyone could just shrug it off and say "Yep, well the dude with the gun was smarter & stronger at that moment, its just evolution. Too bad Discreet wasn't stronger & smarter at that instant. Oh well, its nature's way, the strong survive and the weak die. I guess the guy with the gun was the superior mammal. Next."

Lets hope the mugger that kills you isn't the descendant of slaves, because that would throw our nice little Social Darwinean Theory into a tailspin.

Twisted Evil

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The bright side of slavery

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