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Early American Studies
Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development
During the nineteenth century, the United States entered the ranks of the world's most advanced and dynamic economies. At the same time, the nation sustained an expansive and brutal system of human bondage. This was no mere coincidence. Slavery's Capitalism argues for slavery's centrality to the emergence of American capitalism in the decades between the Revolution and the Civil War. According to editors Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman, the issue is not whether slavery itself was or was not capitalist but, rather, the impossibility of understanding the nation's spectacular pattern of economic development without situating slavery front and center. American capitalism--renowned for its celebration of market competition, private property, and the self-made man--has its origins in an American slavery predicated on the abhorrent notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work under force of violence.
Drawing on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the forefront of rewriting the history of American economic development, Slavery's Capitalism identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy that are too often attributed to the so-called free market. Approaching the study of slavery as the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism casts new light on American credit markets, practices of offshore investment, and understandings of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists recover slavery's importance to the American economic past and prompt enduring questions about the relationship of market freedom to human freedom.
Contributors Edward E. Baptist, Sven Beckert, Daina Ramey Berry, Kathryn Boodry, Alfred L. Brophy, Stephen Chambers, Eric Kimball, John Majewski, Bonnie Martin, Seth Rockman, Daniel B. Rood, Caitlin Rosenthal, Joshua D. Rothman, Calvin Schermerhorn, Andrew Shankman, Craig Steven Wilder.
Drawing on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the forefront of rewriting the history of American economic development, Slavery's Capitalism identifies slavery as the primary force driving key innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, management, and political economy that are too often attributed to the so-called free market. Approaching the study of slavery as the originating catalyst for the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism casts new light on American credit markets, practices of offshore investment, and understandings of human capital. Rather than seeing slavery as outside the institutional structures of capitalism, the essayists recover slavery's importance to the American economic past and prompt enduring questions about the relationship of market freedom to human freedom.
Contributors Edward E. Baptist, Sven Beckert, Daina Ramey Berry, Kathryn Boodry, Alfred L. Brophy, Stephen Chambers, Eric Kimball, John Majewski, Bonnie Martin, Seth Rockman, Daniel B. Rood, Caitlin Rosenthal, Joshua D. Rothman, Calvin Schermerhorn, Andrew Shankman, Craig Steven Wilder.
416 pages, ebook
First published July 28, 2016
81 people are currently reading
1508 people want to read
About the author
Sven Beckert
13 books154 followersThe Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University, Sven Beckert is co-chair of the Program on the Study of Capitalism at Harvard and co-chair of the Weatherhead Initiative on Global History. Professor Beckert researches and teaches the history of the United States in the 19th century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political, and transnational dimensions. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Cullman Center at the New York Public Library, among others.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
December 15, 2017
A very good collection of essays. If you've read Edward Baptist's The Half has Never been told and Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton and still want more, this is great. But go read those first if you haven't because they are much more accessible than these essays.
These essays draw the link between slavery's economic developments and modern day capitalism. It shows how human bodies were commodified and accounted for in plantation books. How bank credit worked with slave bodies, deaths, etc. And how slavery was an efficient and profitable economic system that enriched both north and south.
These essays draw the link between slavery's economic developments and modern day capitalism. It shows how human bodies were commodified and accounted for in plantation books. How bank credit worked with slave bodies, deaths, etc. And how slavery was an efficient and profitable economic system that enriched both north and south.
April 30, 2021
A great anthology for anyone who wants to get a little more meat their bones regarding the integral part slavery played, and plays, in the global economy. Specifically, the book illustrates the role that slavery played in the growth of the United States.
The biggest shocker for me is that this, apparently, is a shocker for many people. It's quite depressing that the authors are talking about a "new field of study," a more holistic view on slavery. How is it not obvious that any system with that many slaves in it, depends on said slaves at every step of development!? Of course the New England states benefited from slavery. Of course Great Britain's textile factories depended on slavery. This much should be a given, and the collected works in this book does a good job providing evidence for this.
And of course the ripples of these benefits are still felt throughout both the US and the world - look no further than the Ivy League Universities (and others of course), the prestigious law firms, and banking families that are still part of American economic pseudo-nobility. Not to mention the various churches. All this is well-illustrated in the book.
However, despite all this, I'm not sure I completely buy in to the concept that slavery is the centerpiece of American capitalism. That bit in the book is a stretch for me, especially considering the non-slave states' (eventual) active opposition to slavery due to its detrimental effects on education and innovation. Had the argument instead been that American capitalism was built on a foundation of slavery - a dirty, blood stained atrocity of a foundation - I would have agreed. The evidence the book brings to bear support as much. And while it's a difference in emphasis only, admittedly - and slavery undeniably played a big role in the emergence of the U.S. as a world power - it is nonetheless a decided difference.
Returning to the current day impact of slavery, it's important to remember that while the U.S. is still seeing the economic and socioeconomic results of slavery, slavery and slavery-like systems are very much alive and well in big parts of the world. And just like New England and Europe both benefited from and indirectly participated in American slavery, the wealthier world continues to benefit from slavery and similar practices to this day.
That's part of the reason I think it's incredibly important to read books like this. Not only to recognize and understand past wrongs and their impact, but also to gain a framework of understanding. A framework of understanding against which we can compare the world we live in today.
The biggest shocker for me is that this, apparently, is a shocker for many people. It's quite depressing that the authors are talking about a "new field of study," a more holistic view on slavery. How is it not obvious that any system with that many slaves in it, depends on said slaves at every step of development!? Of course the New England states benefited from slavery. Of course Great Britain's textile factories depended on slavery. This much should be a given, and the collected works in this book does a good job providing evidence for this.
And of course the ripples of these benefits are still felt throughout both the US and the world - look no further than the Ivy League Universities (and others of course), the prestigious law firms, and banking families that are still part of American economic pseudo-nobility. Not to mention the various churches. All this is well-illustrated in the book.
However, despite all this, I'm not sure I completely buy in to the concept that slavery is the centerpiece of American capitalism. That bit in the book is a stretch for me, especially considering the non-slave states' (eventual) active opposition to slavery due to its detrimental effects on education and innovation. Had the argument instead been that American capitalism was built on a foundation of slavery - a dirty, blood stained atrocity of a foundation - I would have agreed. The evidence the book brings to bear support as much. And while it's a difference in emphasis only, admittedly - and slavery undeniably played a big role in the emergence of the U.S. as a world power - it is nonetheless a decided difference.
Returning to the current day impact of slavery, it's important to remember that while the U.S. is still seeing the economic and socioeconomic results of slavery, slavery and slavery-like systems are very much alive and well in big parts of the world. And just like New England and Europe both benefited from and indirectly participated in American slavery, the wealthier world continues to benefit from slavery and similar practices to this day.
That's part of the reason I think it's incredibly important to read books like this. Not only to recognize and understand past wrongs and their impact, but also to gain a framework of understanding. A framework of understanding against which we can compare the world we live in today.
June 20, 2018
Human beings as depreciating capital, collateral and product. Global trade in cotton, sugar, tobacco and flour supported by this rotting platform. A huge complex of people and entities existed and profited from slavery without ever owning slaves. These essays are often dry, but enlightening.
December 19, 2021
For more than two centuries, the United States has epitomized capitalism—an economic system controlled by private owners of trade and industry for profit, rather than by the state. Naturally, capitalism has been a subject of historical inquiry. Since plantation slavery and capitalism rose in the same period of time, historians have long debated the relationship of slavery to capitalism. Did the two systems support each other? Did capitalism help to end slavery? Stimulated in part by the 2008 global financial crisis, historical scholarship has begun to focus on a “new history of capitalism.” These historians have clearly demonstrated that slavery, especially cotton slavery prior to the Civil War, was a thoroughly modern business that was continuously changing to maximize profits. Slavery's Capitalism draws on the expertise of sixteen scholars who are at the intellectual vanguard of rewriting the history of American economic development. This work, consisting of sixteen essays, provides convincing evidence for a much better understanding of the important role of slavery in American economic history.
American historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author Eric Foner has written the following about Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development:
— This fascinating collection of essays adds striking new insights to the venerable debate over the relationship between capitalism and slavery. It demonstrates slavery's centrality to the nineteenth-century Atlantic economy, and how slavery was fully compatible with technological, managerial, and financial innovation, but also why southern slavery differed from northern capitalism in ways that helped to produce the irrepressible conflict.
— Eric Foner, author of Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
In writing about Slavery’s Capitalism, American historian, university president, and recipient of the National Humanities Medal Edward Lynn Ayers has written:
— The centrality of slavery to the economic development of the United States is revealed here more fully, in more dimensions, than in any other book. Anyone who wants to understand this profound revolution in historical thinking will find no better place to start.
— Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America
According to Leslie Harris, an American historian and professor of History and African American Studies scholar at Northwestern University, “the intimate relationship between capitalism and slavery has been too-long dismissed, and with it, the centrality of African American labor to the foundation of our modern economic system. Slavery's Capitalism reveals the inextricable link between emerging capitalism and the enslavement of people of African descent.
This fascinating collection of essays provides remarkable new insights to the debate over the relationship between capitalism and slavery—a debate that I had not even known was taking place. When I first picked up this book from our local library, I thought this might be a rather dense, academic discussion of the issues. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a very readable history that opened my eyes to a broader knowledge of economics and slavery. Was the American economy, renowned for its market competition, private property, and the self-made man, built on the notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work? Slavery's Capitalism clearly identifies slavery as the primary force driving important innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, and management. If slavery helped to support capitalism in this early period, then it arguably contributed to the wealth that many modern Americans enjoy. Despite having completed 60 credit hours of graduate level study in business, I was surprised to discover the many linkages between slavery and capitalism. While I recognize that it is not likely a work that most of my Goodreads friends will enjoy, I found it to be wonderfully informative—an important contribution to scholarship on American capitalism.
American historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author Eric Foner has written the following about Slavery’s Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development:
— This fascinating collection of essays adds striking new insights to the venerable debate over the relationship between capitalism and slavery. It demonstrates slavery's centrality to the nineteenth-century Atlantic economy, and how slavery was fully compatible with technological, managerial, and financial innovation, but also why southern slavery differed from northern capitalism in ways that helped to produce the irrepressible conflict.
— Eric Foner, author of Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad
In writing about Slavery’s Capitalism, American historian, university president, and recipient of the National Humanities Medal Edward Lynn Ayers has written:
— The centrality of slavery to the economic development of the United States is revealed here more fully, in more dimensions, than in any other book. Anyone who wants to understand this profound revolution in historical thinking will find no better place to start.
— Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America
According to Leslie Harris, an American historian and professor of History and African American Studies scholar at Northwestern University, “the intimate relationship between capitalism and slavery has been too-long dismissed, and with it, the centrality of African American labor to the foundation of our modern economic system. Slavery's Capitalism reveals the inextricable link between emerging capitalism and the enslavement of people of African descent.
This fascinating collection of essays provides remarkable new insights to the debate over the relationship between capitalism and slavery—a debate that I had not even known was taking place. When I first picked up this book from our local library, I thought this might be a rather dense, academic discussion of the issues. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a very readable history that opened my eyes to a broader knowledge of economics and slavery. Was the American economy, renowned for its market competition, private property, and the self-made man, built on the notion that human beings could be legally owned and compelled to work? Slavery's Capitalism clearly identifies slavery as the primary force driving important innovations in entrepreneurship, finance, accounting, and management. If slavery helped to support capitalism in this early period, then it arguably contributed to the wealth that many modern Americans enjoy. Despite having completed 60 credit hours of graduate level study in business, I was surprised to discover the many linkages between slavery and capitalism. While I recognize that it is not likely a work that most of my Goodreads friends will enjoy, I found it to be wonderfully informative—an important contribution to scholarship on American capitalism.
Read
July 10, 2024Very necessary
April 5, 2017
This is a fascinating anthology looking at capitalism and the enslavement of Africans as the central factors that established, economically, the United States. Most of the essays were very interesting and really pulled apart the myth that the institution of slavery was somehow a southern contained creation of backwards thinking and that the north was somehow a savior and an economic and industrial machine. Many of the essays point to the trade in goods and services between the north and south, which supported the Plantation Industrial Complex.
One essay, by Caitlin Rosenthal, discussed the use of enslaved Africans as hands--and looked at a number of plantation ledgers to see how the labor of enslaved Africans on the plantation was recorded. She wrote, "The 'hand' was the basis for an array of calculations." The bodies, lives, and souls of enslaved Africans were completely disconnected from their hands. Nothing else mattered except how much they produced; the enslaved Africans who were the most productive were called "prime hands" and all other labor of enslaved Africans was measured against them. I failed to underline this section in my copy of the book, but these lines rang out, hauntingly as a worked my way through it.
Other essays looked very explicitly at interstate trade as well as the industrial revolution, in the US and England, being fueled with the raw materials collected by enslaved Africans and then profited from by white southerners.
Toward the end of the book is an essay, by Alfred L. Brophy, that looks at how the law was used to make the institution of slavery and capitalism as an economic system mutually beneficial to the economic functioning of the country. He shows how the philosophical principle of utilitarianism was used for a justification and further refining of slavery and capitalism. Utilitarianism says that what's good, is what's good for the greatest number of people. In this context, that meant white people generally and specifically white capitalists. Enslaved Africans weren't people and thus no moral or philosophical consideration was required. He writes, "In summary, then, American judges embraced values of what we call economic efficiency and turned to empirical investigation to understand what path would produce the greatest utility. Those values of utility and empiricism led judges to seek a well-functioning market. It was a world of property, of releasing masters from control from the law, of rules that promoted a well-functioning slave system."
A few of the essays didn't interest me or conveyed their ideas poorly. But literally most of the book, minus two or three essays, were very interesting. It's an angle that I had not considered before and one that I am glad I examined. I recommend this book!
One essay, by Caitlin Rosenthal, discussed the use of enslaved Africans as hands--and looked at a number of plantation ledgers to see how the labor of enslaved Africans on the plantation was recorded. She wrote, "The 'hand' was the basis for an array of calculations." The bodies, lives, and souls of enslaved Africans were completely disconnected from their hands. Nothing else mattered except how much they produced; the enslaved Africans who were the most productive were called "prime hands" and all other labor of enslaved Africans was measured against them. I failed to underline this section in my copy of the book, but these lines rang out, hauntingly as a worked my way through it.
Other essays looked very explicitly at interstate trade as well as the industrial revolution, in the US and England, being fueled with the raw materials collected by enslaved Africans and then profited from by white southerners.
Toward the end of the book is an essay, by Alfred L. Brophy, that looks at how the law was used to make the institution of slavery and capitalism as an economic system mutually beneficial to the economic functioning of the country. He shows how the philosophical principle of utilitarianism was used for a justification and further refining of slavery and capitalism. Utilitarianism says that what's good, is what's good for the greatest number of people. In this context, that meant white people generally and specifically white capitalists. Enslaved Africans weren't people and thus no moral or philosophical consideration was required. He writes, "In summary, then, American judges embraced values of what we call economic efficiency and turned to empirical investigation to understand what path would produce the greatest utility. Those values of utility and empiricism led judges to seek a well-functioning market. It was a world of property, of releasing masters from control from the law, of rules that promoted a well-functioning slave system."
A few of the essays didn't interest me or conveyed their ideas poorly. But literally most of the book, minus two or three essays, were very interesting. It's an angle that I had not considered before and one that I am glad I examined. I recommend this book!
November 12, 2017
Slightly more academic than The Half Has Never Been Told, uses the same sources from the sound of it.
Glad it exists, because you can't just disregard this one because "OMG, he used the 'f' word!" like the other, better book. . .
Key arguments in the book (for me):
Slavery is demonstrably responsible for the success of Western Capitalism.
The Civil War was about whether or not Slavery would, not just exist, but expand throughout the nation. States' Rights isn't just a dodge, it's an outright lie. The Southern Sates insisted on the rights of enslavers in all states.
Slavery was a massively crueler institution than we are allowed to remember -- and it was this very cruelty that makes the arguments that it does not fit Capitalism and is a Pre-Industrial institution by nature spurious.
We should know these things.
Argument I wish these works had the courage and reach to engage: Capitalism continues to out-right require slavery to provide the bottom-level resources that drive its machinations. We who do not remember our pasts are damned -- history does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
Glad it exists, because you can't just disregard this one because "OMG, he used the 'f' word!" like the other, better book. . .
Key arguments in the book (for me):
Slavery is demonstrably responsible for the success of Western Capitalism.
The Civil War was about whether or not Slavery would, not just exist, but expand throughout the nation. States' Rights isn't just a dodge, it's an outright lie. The Southern Sates insisted on the rights of enslavers in all states.
Slavery was a massively crueler institution than we are allowed to remember -- and it was this very cruelty that makes the arguments that it does not fit Capitalism and is a Pre-Industrial institution by nature spurious.
We should know these things.
Argument I wish these works had the courage and reach to engage: Capitalism continues to out-right require slavery to provide the bottom-level resources that drive its machinations. We who do not remember our pasts are damned -- history does not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.
March 26, 2020
A collection of essays, very thorough essays, from authors who explore how slavery was a necessary part of capitalism, not separate from it & the many ways it helped fuel capitalism. There are those that say capitalism could have gotten along without the so called primitive accumulation of slavery but as one of the main editors said, perhaps but it didn’t & this book lays those arguments to rest.
Outside of the obvious physical labor thrust on slaves, there is discussion of credit & insurance, what that meant for a slave in before, during & after life, as well as what it meant for the conditions in which slaves worked. It dispels myths about northern progressivism & shows just how much the north benefited not only from slavery in the south but also slavery in the West Indies, the latter being under foreign control.
There is discussion of banks, local economies, local & national politics & how, despite being at odds at times, that overall they worked in tandem to ensure slavery supported the nation. The history of the Catholic Church’s role in slavery is given an essay on it’s own, which in addition to showing how it benefited economically, shows how they benefited politically as a once mistrusted minority. They were not an ethic minority as the Irish for example but used the same method to gain acceptance, on the backs of black slaves.
There is also discussion of the role of slavery in benefitting education whether you’re talking about Catholic colleges, northern education in general from general public school education through college, education for the elite in what are now called Ivy League colleges or for children of the southern planter elite.
To dispel any notions of how foundational slavery is to capitalism & the U.S. there is time given to the creation & use of law & the judges & jurors enforcement of it & quoted as saying slavery was foundation to the country & it’s economic future. This & the moves made by northerners & the benefits they reaped eliminate any possibility of viewing it as a purely southern phenomenon & institution. And finally, despite the eventual push from the north for abolition & to deny expansion to the Midwest, dispels the myth that it was due to any moral sensibilities & had everything to do with the ceiling of limitations a slave society would impose on technology & economics for the country as well as denying political power a firm & restrictive seat with the plantation elite.
One of the best books I’ve read in a while. Highly recommended for anyone wishing to understand the links between capitalism & slavery.
Outside of the obvious physical labor thrust on slaves, there is discussion of credit & insurance, what that meant for a slave in before, during & after life, as well as what it meant for the conditions in which slaves worked. It dispels myths about northern progressivism & shows just how much the north benefited not only from slavery in the south but also slavery in the West Indies, the latter being under foreign control.
There is discussion of banks, local economies, local & national politics & how, despite being at odds at times, that overall they worked in tandem to ensure slavery supported the nation. The history of the Catholic Church’s role in slavery is given an essay on it’s own, which in addition to showing how it benefited economically, shows how they benefited politically as a once mistrusted minority. They were not an ethic minority as the Irish for example but used the same method to gain acceptance, on the backs of black slaves.
There is also discussion of the role of slavery in benefitting education whether you’re talking about Catholic colleges, northern education in general from general public school education through college, education for the elite in what are now called Ivy League colleges or for children of the southern planter elite.
To dispel any notions of how foundational slavery is to capitalism & the U.S. there is time given to the creation & use of law & the judges & jurors enforcement of it & quoted as saying slavery was foundation to the country & it’s economic future. This & the moves made by northerners & the benefits they reaped eliminate any possibility of viewing it as a purely southern phenomenon & institution. And finally, despite the eventual push from the north for abolition & to deny expansion to the Midwest, dispels the myth that it was due to any moral sensibilities & had everything to do with the ceiling of limitations a slave society would impose on technology & economics for the country as well as denying political power a firm & restrictive seat with the plantation elite.
One of the best books I’ve read in a while. Highly recommended for anyone wishing to understand the links between capitalism & slavery.
November 28, 2025
Serviceable collection of essays on many aspects of American slavery and its relation to the capitalist economic system the USA is built upon. The nascent USA indeed was built upon the backs of enslaved people; a sobering and humiliating truth that needs to told and heard by all. On the subject be sure to check out: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. On the subject of racism check these magisterial works: The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea and the absolute must read/listen: American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow.
January 26, 2022
There is a wealth of knowledge in this book -- hard though it is to breach and digest. Through the works of several essayists and researchers, it examines slavery's integral role in fashioning and sculpting American Capitalism of the 19th Century, and how American slavery casts long shadows on American economic philosophy today. Some of the essays are definitely more accessible than others. I particularly enjoyed the essays about laws governing compensation and insurance in the case of dead enslaved persons, scientific management, the part New Englanders played in slavery, and market utility. It ends kind of abruptly; I wish the editors had added one more conclusive note or chapter. The final chapter does wrap up the narrative nicely, however. This book makes for interesting reading and probably an even more useful reference book.
January 28, 2018
It's a dense (academic) book at times, but an eye-opener for anyone interested in the economics of the slavery. This book documents the movement by some historians to challenge the accepted (and acceptable) belief that greed combined with the wealth that slavery provided the cotton plantation owners in the South explains the north/south split on slavery.
Another eye-opener for me was the connection to native americans. The cotton (and thus slavery) exploded in market value only after the US drove out native americans from the southwest territories (TX, LA, MS, AL), and then 'industrialized' the production of cotton in these new frontiers.
The essays also give more awareness to the economics of slave ships - maximize profit, thus pack in slaves even if a percentage would die as a result.
If you don't want all the details, simply read the lengthy introduction for a summary of the essays.
Cotton was the most valuable world commodity in the 1800's. With slave labor (and then later some technology, eg cotton gin), the South could out produce everyone else. But those that got rich on cotton included the shippers (slaves, raw cotton, food for the slaves, finished cotton products), the slave owners (once the overseas slave trade was banned, the slave owners controlled the market of new slaves), bankers, mill owners, churches (free labor).
Given the coverage in the media in the last 20 years, one shouldn't be surprised to know that many New England venerated colleges and bankers have been tainted by their connections to slavery. This book, a collection of essays, goes into depth about the economics of slavery. It makes a strong case for the argument that 'slavery enabled capitalism' as opposed to the popular belief that capitalism and the industrial revolution undermined slavery.
Thesis: did capitalism and all its so-called "benefits" develop world-wide on the backs of slaves?
Notes
p.
[Introd.]
11 slavery - a commodity - fits well w/ capitalism and its 'everything has a price'. A slave woman's reproductive labor was another such commodity.
14 Steamships took E. coast slaves to New Orleans for the vast new plantations in Ala, Miss
South had tech too - steam machines for sugar factory., large labor force. Not solely a NE feature.
15 Also the WHIP was new tech [!?]. Accounting practices increased cotton production many-fold
16 slaves, cotton - all part of credit/finance/speculation/collateral, 2nd mortgages (capitalism!). Eg a young slave represented 'value growth' investment
Insure for loss, including suicides
22 forced migration: SW frontier cleared of natives; ship slaves from Balt. to New Orl.
36 white people in cotton slaves richest group in US
40 1820 US had 80% of world cotton market
41-7 discussion of slave/serf econ and political theories
48-50 whip used to raise quotas
If you accept the premise that money/greed is a major drive
Another eye-opener for me was the connection to native americans. The cotton (and thus slavery) exploded in market value only after the US drove out native americans from the southwest territories (TX, LA, MS, AL), and then 'industrialized' the production of cotton in these new frontiers.
The essays also give more awareness to the economics of slave ships - maximize profit, thus pack in slaves even if a percentage would die as a result.
If you don't want all the details, simply read the lengthy introduction for a summary of the essays.
Cotton was the most valuable world commodity in the 1800's. With slave labor (and then later some technology, eg cotton gin), the South could out produce everyone else. But those that got rich on cotton included the shippers (slaves, raw cotton, food for the slaves, finished cotton products), the slave owners (once the overseas slave trade was banned, the slave owners controlled the market of new slaves), bankers, mill owners, churches (free labor).
Given the coverage in the media in the last 20 years, one shouldn't be surprised to know that many New England venerated colleges and bankers have been tainted by their connections to slavery. This book, a collection of essays, goes into depth about the economics of slavery. It makes a strong case for the argument that 'slavery enabled capitalism' as opposed to the popular belief that capitalism and the industrial revolution undermined slavery.
Thesis: did capitalism and all its so-called "benefits" develop world-wide on the backs of slaves?
Notes
p.
[Introd.]
11 slavery - a commodity - fits well w/ capitalism and its 'everything has a price'. A slave woman's reproductive labor was another such commodity.
14 Steamships took E. coast slaves to New Orleans for the vast new plantations in Ala, Miss
South had tech too - steam machines for sugar factory., large labor force. Not solely a NE feature.
15 Also the WHIP was new tech [!?]. Accounting practices increased cotton production many-fold
16 slaves, cotton - all part of credit/finance/speculation/collateral, 2nd mortgages (capitalism!). Eg a young slave represented 'value growth' investment
Insure for loss, including suicides
22 forced migration: SW frontier cleared of natives; ship slaves from Balt. to New Orl.
36 white people in cotton slaves richest group in US
40 1820 US had 80% of world cotton market
41-7 discussion of slave/serf econ and political theories
48-50 whip used to raise quotas
If you accept the premise that money/greed is a major drive
August 4, 2019
This book has a lot to offer. It is a series of articles of scholars working on the nexus between slavery and capitalism.
What I like about this book is that it offers quite a bit of information on slavery and race in America.
It also makes several arguments, some of which stick, some of which don't.
The argument that I thought was most well argued was that slavery was not simply a regional phenomenon, but was really a national phenomenon that affected the entire United States. American diplomats working in Russia were closely connected to the slavery of the Cuban Sugar Trade, Yankee merchants were heavily involved in financing slavery, and Yankee shippers transported slaves on their ships, often without even realizing it.
The argument that I found less convincing was that slavery was at the center of American capitalism. In the book's beginning, the editors admit that they do not actually prove this point, but they call the book "Slavery's Capitalism" and they repeatedly press the point that slavery was at the center of capitalism. Maybe, but I was not convinced by this point.
Part of their problem is that it is a case that requires a tightly made argument, something that is impossible when you have a dozen authors writing on topics that are sometimes only peripherally related to the subject matter. But part of their problem is that the just do not manage to make their point. The last chapter actually seems to undercut their argument, arguing that slavery made Southerners ideologically opposed to democratizing education, which meant that innovation, a key component of capitalism, never could take off in the South the way that it did in the North.
These problems are compounded by the occassionally less than stellar scholarship of some of the authors. Some of them seem to make elementary mistakes that I would correct in my Freshman student's writing. Particularly problematic for several of the book's authors is their inability to come up with a thesis and stick with it. One chapter is ostensibly focused on the relationship between slavery and Georgetown University, but it spends most of the chapter talking about the decline and rise of Catholicism in the United States. Another chapter is focused on Southern innovation and the case of the McCormick Reaper, but it shoehorns a tangent about Brazil into the chapter. These tangents are distracting and detracting from the narrative that the authors are trying to develop.
Overall, this book is a scholarly engagement with the role that slavery played in the development of American capitalism. It makes some interesting points, but it never quite makes the point that it sets out to make. Still, worth a read for anyone wanting to think about the economic history of slavery. The best chapters are the first (not the Introduction) and last chapters.
What I like about this book is that it offers quite a bit of information on slavery and race in America.
It also makes several arguments, some of which stick, some of which don't.
The argument that I thought was most well argued was that slavery was not simply a regional phenomenon, but was really a national phenomenon that affected the entire United States. American diplomats working in Russia were closely connected to the slavery of the Cuban Sugar Trade, Yankee merchants were heavily involved in financing slavery, and Yankee shippers transported slaves on their ships, often without even realizing it.
The argument that I found less convincing was that slavery was at the center of American capitalism. In the book's beginning, the editors admit that they do not actually prove this point, but they call the book "Slavery's Capitalism" and they repeatedly press the point that slavery was at the center of capitalism. Maybe, but I was not convinced by this point.
Part of their problem is that it is a case that requires a tightly made argument, something that is impossible when you have a dozen authors writing on topics that are sometimes only peripherally related to the subject matter. But part of their problem is that the just do not manage to make their point. The last chapter actually seems to undercut their argument, arguing that slavery made Southerners ideologically opposed to democratizing education, which meant that innovation, a key component of capitalism, never could take off in the South the way that it did in the North.
These problems are compounded by the occassionally less than stellar scholarship of some of the authors. Some of them seem to make elementary mistakes that I would correct in my Freshman student's writing. Particularly problematic for several of the book's authors is their inability to come up with a thesis and stick with it. One chapter is ostensibly focused on the relationship between slavery and Georgetown University, but it spends most of the chapter talking about the decline and rise of Catholicism in the United States. Another chapter is focused on Southern innovation and the case of the McCormick Reaper, but it shoehorns a tangent about Brazil into the chapter. These tangents are distracting and detracting from the narrative that the authors are trying to develop.
Overall, this book is a scholarly engagement with the role that slavery played in the development of American capitalism. It makes some interesting points, but it never quite makes the point that it sets out to make. Still, worth a read for anyone wanting to think about the economic history of slavery. The best chapters are the first (not the Introduction) and last chapters.
December 3, 2022
If you think the move from slave economy to industrial economy was all about good overcoming evil read this. The slave economy is underpinned by the value extraction and exploitation of slavery. Humans suck.
April 23, 2023
Review title: Facing capitalism
This collection of papers from scholars on the topic benefits from the broad range of philosophical and analytical approaches to the study of the impact of slavery on American capitalism, and suffers from the sometimes disjointed selection of styles and subjects. While not unfathomable, the reader is somewhat on their own synthesizing the material here. While this cost a star in my rating (from four-star "Worth my time" to two-star "a well, OK, I guess"), Slavery's Capitalism is still a valuable study for American readers serious about knowing the basis of American capitalism.
With the virulent controversy over teaching how race-based slavery shaped American history, law, politics, and culture, it is easy to forget this simple truth: "That the plantation and the factory composed a coherent national economy was less controversial 175 years ago than it is today." The northeastern manufacturers who benefited from cheap slave-produced raw materials and the Southern plantation owners who profited from the slaves who produced them well knew the basis of their wealth.
The issue for modern historians is documenting it through quantifiable evidence, which is addressed by many of the authors here digging into plantation records, shipping logs, and bank books. What follows is the outcome of this rigorous detective work and data analysis.
Why does this history matter and why is it so controversial even (and particularly) now?
Slavery is embedded in the economic and political systems of America. As American slavery was purely race-based, then systemic racism, which some so vociferously deny, is still a major problem in America that we can't fix if we won't face our history.
The first set of essays, on "Plantation Technologies" is perhaps the most important in this book. Edward E. Baptist's research in plantation account books "finds a growth in daily picking averages of some 400 percent between 1800 and 1860, or a 2.1 percent growth in productivity each year." (p. 41; in his endnotes Baptist addresses whether these gains could have been driven by improved seeds or were equaled by non-slave labor, see p. 314-315,notes 35 and 39). Such gains were planned and tracked by published plantation journals--"complete systems designed to help capitalists manage labor and monitor their profits" (p. 69)--available for sale and used by most plantations with large slave workforces, and made possible by the extreme cruelty of forced labor from human beings reduced to "hands" and driven to meet ever higher quotas. "The whip made cotton. And whip-made increases in the efficiency of picking had global significance:" (p. 52). Lower prices for raw materials driving increased manufacturing, lowering prices for finished goods and expanding markets for international shipping, and establishing consumer markets and marketing to convince buyers they need all these finished products. Never forget these pay-it-forward capitalist economic gains were driven by increased slave productivity under the whip. It was Taylorism before Taylor (p. 103), unburdened by the need to consider the human cost.
And the benefits accrued to slavers and non-slave owners alike. Northern manufacturers, banks, and shipping companies benefited crom slavery's capitalism. "The fact of the matter is that, in the nineteenth century, involvement in the American trade, whether in goods produced for commercial sale or in financial instruments such as bnds, meant involvement in some fashion with slave labor." (p. 167). And as "ship captains became merchants became bankers became statesmen," (p. 197) the insidious influence of slavery's capitalism entered government and politics (and higher education; see Chapter 11 on slavery profits and endowments funding America's first and most prestigious universities).
Banks devised new instruments for assessing and slaves as collateral for loans, leveraging that value to buy more land and slaves even as these "mortgaged" slaves continued producing under the whip (see Bonnie Martin's essay "Neighbor-to-Neighbor Capitalism", p. 107). This morally repugnant monetization of human bodies is damningly documented by Daina Ramey Berry in a chapter on "Human Capital and Enslaved Mortality." "The biological, spiritual, and economic bodies of enslaved people preceded birth and extended after death." (p. 147)
With the banning of the transatlantic slave trade, a new triangular pattern was developed called the "Second Slavery" by some of the authors here and documented by Calvin Schermerhorn in his description of the Baltimore-based and American-owned Unicorn (p. 211-216). The ship boarded slaves from Virginia and delivered them to New Orleans, where it reloaded with cotton picked by slaves and delivered it to Liverpool, picking up finished textiles made from the raw cotton and delivering it back to Baltimore for consumer sale in the final leg of the triangle. The Unicorn completed the cycle multiple times from 1820 to 1825 before being lost at sea. The million-plus slaves moved from the tidewater coastal regions on land and on ships like the Unicorn plus the purchase of slaves from Cuba and Brazil into the southwestern cotton slave plantations put the 50 years before the Civil War near the top in slave importation in history (p. 53-54). This puts the lie to the accepted historical narrative that slavery was economically unproductive--otherwise why would supposedly rational slaveholders invest so much in human capital?
So my review comes full circle. We need to face our history, not deny it or prevent it being taught. Only then can we make wise decisions on how to talk about our past (history), govern our present (politics and law), and improve our future (economics and ethics).
This collection of papers from scholars on the topic benefits from the broad range of philosophical and analytical approaches to the study of the impact of slavery on American capitalism, and suffers from the sometimes disjointed selection of styles and subjects. While not unfathomable, the reader is somewhat on their own synthesizing the material here. While this cost a star in my rating (from four-star "Worth my time" to two-star "a well, OK, I guess"), Slavery's Capitalism is still a valuable study for American readers serious about knowing the basis of American capitalism.
With the virulent controversy over teaching how race-based slavery shaped American history, law, politics, and culture, it is easy to forget this simple truth: "That the plantation and the factory composed a coherent national economy was less controversial 175 years ago than it is today." The northeastern manufacturers who benefited from cheap slave-produced raw materials and the Southern plantation owners who profited from the slaves who produced them well knew the basis of their wealth.
The North’s familiar forms of entrepreneurship, innovation, and market competition beg the counterfactual claim that the American economic takeoff could have happened without slavery. Perhaps it might have, but the fact remains that it didn’t. . . .As capitalism expanded from within the world market it had created, slavery came to play a central, even decisive, role--first in the Caribbean and Latin America, and then in North America--tightly connected to the world-altering Industrial Revolution and the so-called Great Divergence. By virtue of our nation’s history, American slavery is necessarily imprinted on the DNA of American capitalism. However, we are only now cataloguing the dominant and recessive traits passed down since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the British colonies that would become the United States. (p. 3)
The issue for modern historians is documenting it through quantifiable evidence, which is addressed by many of the authors here digging into plantation records, shipping logs, and bank books. What follows is the outcome of this rigorous detective work and data analysis.
Why does this history matter and why is it so controversial even (and particularly) now?
As the advent and expansion of capitalism went hand in hand with the formation of states, the one enabling the other, slavery, just as much, was facilitated, regulated, and policed by states, which in turn grew some of their strength from the wages of slavery. States forged national political economies and provided the stage on which political conflicts unfolded. Slavery’s history, and thus slavery’s capitalism, rested on institutional arrangements, the outcome of political struggles and bureaucratic, administrative, legal, and infrastructural capacities that were defined, negotiated, and constructed within national political spaces. (p. 12)
Slavery is embedded in the economic and political systems of America. As American slavery was purely race-based, then systemic racism, which some so vociferously deny, is still a major problem in America that we can't fix if we won't face our history.
The first set of essays, on "Plantation Technologies" is perhaps the most important in this book. Edward E. Baptist's research in plantation account books "finds a growth in daily picking averages of some 400 percent between 1800 and 1860, or a 2.1 percent growth in productivity each year." (p. 41; in his endnotes Baptist addresses whether these gains could have been driven by improved seeds or were equaled by non-slave labor, see p. 314-315,notes 35 and 39). Such gains were planned and tracked by published plantation journals--"complete systems designed to help capitalists manage labor and monitor their profits" (p. 69)--available for sale and used by most plantations with large slave workforces, and made possible by the extreme cruelty of forced labor from human beings reduced to "hands" and driven to meet ever higher quotas. "The whip made cotton. And whip-made increases in the efficiency of picking had global significance:" (p. 52). Lower prices for raw materials driving increased manufacturing, lowering prices for finished goods and expanding markets for international shipping, and establishing consumer markets and marketing to convince buyers they need all these finished products. Never forget these pay-it-forward capitalist economic gains were driven by increased slave productivity under the whip. It was Taylorism before Taylor (p. 103), unburdened by the need to consider the human cost.
And the benefits accrued to slavers and non-slave owners alike. Northern manufacturers, banks, and shipping companies benefited crom slavery's capitalism. "The fact of the matter is that, in the nineteenth century, involvement in the American trade, whether in goods produced for commercial sale or in financial instruments such as bnds, meant involvement in some fashion with slave labor." (p. 167). And as "ship captains became merchants became bankers became statesmen," (p. 197) the insidious influence of slavery's capitalism entered government and politics (and higher education; see Chapter 11 on slavery profits and endowments funding America's first and most prestigious universities).
Banks devised new instruments for assessing and slaves as collateral for loans, leveraging that value to buy more land and slaves even as these "mortgaged" slaves continued producing under the whip (see Bonnie Martin's essay "Neighbor-to-Neighbor Capitalism", p. 107). This morally repugnant monetization of human bodies is damningly documented by Daina Ramey Berry in a chapter on "Human Capital and Enslaved Mortality." "The biological, spiritual, and economic bodies of enslaved people preceded birth and extended after death." (p. 147)
With the banning of the transatlantic slave trade, a new triangular pattern was developed called the "Second Slavery" by some of the authors here and documented by Calvin Schermerhorn in his description of the Baltimore-based and American-owned Unicorn (p. 211-216). The ship boarded slaves from Virginia and delivered them to New Orleans, where it reloaded with cotton picked by slaves and delivered it to Liverpool, picking up finished textiles made from the raw cotton and delivering it back to Baltimore for consumer sale in the final leg of the triangle. The Unicorn completed the cycle multiple times from 1820 to 1825 before being lost at sea. The million-plus slaves moved from the tidewater coastal regions on land and on ships like the Unicorn plus the purchase of slaves from Cuba and Brazil into the southwestern cotton slave plantations put the 50 years before the Civil War near the top in slave importation in history (p. 53-54). This puts the lie to the accepted historical narrative that slavery was economically unproductive--otherwise why would supposedly rational slaveholders invest so much in human capital?
So my review comes full circle. We need to face our history, not deny it or prevent it being taught. Only then can we make wise decisions on how to talk about our past (history), govern our present (politics and law), and improve our future (economics and ethics).
November 16, 2020
A few years ago I read River of Dark Dreams and learned about the capitalist side of the cotton plantation economy and the active involvement of the farmers, merchants and financiers of the North in supporting it and making their own fortunes off of the bounty of slavery. This book is more of the same. It was interesting and had a lot of additional background and supporting information beyond what I had read elsewhere, but it didn't really teach me much that I didn't already know.
I already knew that the cotton planters were often sophisticated businessmen who ran their plantations with the latest agricultural science and financing structures. This book does go a step further in suggesting that the application of violence was also scientific and capitalistic, but I wasn't persuaded by that part. I tend to think that the violence was driven more by fear and by a psychological need to dehumanize the enslaved people to justify treating them like property. I continue to think that a well-treated paid free workforce would have been able to do the same job more efficently, if not for the accident of history that made slavery the chosen structure on which plantation agriculture was founded. And this book suggests that the planters were canny rich businessmen, whereas I think that most of them, like all farmers from all ages were mostly just a few steps ahead of their bankers and easily wiped out by a couple of bad years for cotton.
But I do think that it is important to remember that the guilty burden of the history of slavery that we bear is a burden carried by the entire nation. Many Northerners were complicit in the slave economy and happily made their fortunes off of it. In fact much of the ability of the North to industrialize was based on the economic underpinnings of slavery. In this way the prosperity that we enjoy today is built on the bones of the men and women who suffered and often perished in slavery.
I already knew that the cotton planters were often sophisticated businessmen who ran their plantations with the latest agricultural science and financing structures. This book does go a step further in suggesting that the application of violence was also scientific and capitalistic, but I wasn't persuaded by that part. I tend to think that the violence was driven more by fear and by a psychological need to dehumanize the enslaved people to justify treating them like property. I continue to think that a well-treated paid free workforce would have been able to do the same job more efficently, if not for the accident of history that made slavery the chosen structure on which plantation agriculture was founded. And this book suggests that the planters were canny rich businessmen, whereas I think that most of them, like all farmers from all ages were mostly just a few steps ahead of their bankers and easily wiped out by a couple of bad years for cotton.
But I do think that it is important to remember that the guilty burden of the history of slavery that we bear is a burden carried by the entire nation. Many Northerners were complicit in the slave economy and happily made their fortunes off of it. In fact much of the ability of the North to industrialize was based on the economic underpinnings of slavery. In this way the prosperity that we enjoy today is built on the bones of the men and women who suffered and often perished in slavery.
February 16, 2021
3.5
This book attempts to show how slavery played a large role in economic development across the America's. Most attention is paid to the US. This is counter to popular claims that slavery was backwards and deflated the southern economy to the point of civil war when slavery could no longer be tolerated. Slavery was very compatible with post enlightenment capitalism(uses the limestone south) however. We should be aware that the war could have been won by the union with slavery in tact, and that Lincoln did not make the emancipation announcement until after a major military win, in Louisiana I believe, swung the war in the unions favor, so that the institution of slavery could be distinctly approached as an objective of the war.
Instead of seeing slavery as a backwards practice that is antithetical to enlightenment ideas, we should see it as a mature economy. One that had slaves AB test and develop new agricultural technologies. Beckert outlines slaves as credit, used for neighbor to neighbor lending. Slaves worked the lands for some of Americas earliest collegiate institutions(Georgetown, Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, Rutgers, Dartmouth etc.) and provided free labor that enabled cheap or subsidized schooling for northerners. Slavery was basically a huge ag boom for whites during the period and saw some trade everything they had for slaves and land. When it was made illegal, New Englanders traded in slave produced goods for the Dutch and British by proxy. I mean slavery was big business. Sugar was pretty big. Cotton was too.
This book attempts to show how slavery played a large role in economic development across the America's. Most attention is paid to the US. This is counter to popular claims that slavery was backwards and deflated the southern economy to the point of civil war when slavery could no longer be tolerated. Slavery was very compatible with post enlightenment capitalism(uses the limestone south) however. We should be aware that the war could have been won by the union with slavery in tact, and that Lincoln did not make the emancipation announcement until after a major military win, in Louisiana I believe, swung the war in the unions favor, so that the institution of slavery could be distinctly approached as an objective of the war.
Instead of seeing slavery as a backwards practice that is antithetical to enlightenment ideas, we should see it as a mature economy. One that had slaves AB test and develop new agricultural technologies. Beckert outlines slaves as credit, used for neighbor to neighbor lending. Slaves worked the lands for some of Americas earliest collegiate institutions(Georgetown, Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, Rutgers, Dartmouth etc.) and provided free labor that enabled cheap or subsidized schooling for northerners. Slavery was basically a huge ag boom for whites during the period and saw some trade everything they had for slaves and land. When it was made illegal, New Englanders traded in slave produced goods for the Dutch and British by proxy. I mean slavery was big business. Sugar was pretty big. Cotton was too.
September 24, 2022
As a collection of essays, this text just didn't feel coherent to me. Yes, it is a collection of new scholarship regarding the role of slavery in early American capitalism. But the essays are so different that they don't come together as something that makes sense as a single book.
Individually, the essays/chapters were variable. Some really good that seemed to make an important argument. Others I couldn't focus on for some reason, and still others seemed like information that wasn't developed into a complete point.
I've appreciated longer texts from some of the contributors here and some of the longer scholarship in this area, but this one didn't do it for me. But I think the topic and support of the scholarship remains important. So maybe read it just to support further historical inquiry and development...?
Individually, the essays/chapters were variable. Some really good that seemed to make an important argument. Others I couldn't focus on for some reason, and still others seemed like information that wasn't developed into a complete point.
I've appreciated longer texts from some of the contributors here and some of the longer scholarship in this area, but this one didn't do it for me. But I think the topic and support of the scholarship remains important. So maybe read it just to support further historical inquiry and development...?
March 26, 2021
Slavery's Capitalism really helps me understand why political events of today are happening. I wonder if we might as well go back to wearing old fashioned clothes, so many political and social conditions are the same.
July 10, 2022
The thing about Slavery's Capitalism is that a struggling new country based its economic growth largely on free labor in a promise land of untold agricultural riches. This essay anthology offers scholarly, well researched, in depth analyses and case studies of exactly how true that is. Less than 100 years after the abolition of slavery, the post WWII era led to an economic boom that saw entire populations of previously poor and impoverished Americans achieving a middle class standard of living that has since been passed down to generations of descendants. That boom did not, though, include one very significant demographic of American society, the descendants of the slaves on whose labor and suffering American wealth and prosperity was built. Make no mistake, though, slavery was economically disastrous for impoverished white immigrants, as well, who found no agricultural jobs upon arriving in this "promised land" because slavery provided wealthy land owners with all the free labor they needed.
However, when prosperity finally came to the descendants of poor white immigrants in the mid 20th Century, it did not yet come to the descendants of the slaves on whose labor that prosperity was built. The book does not market itself as a justification for reparations. In fact, I don't believe the word is used at all in the book, but the essays themselves thoroughly establish that in fact American wealth and prosperity is owed in large part to the free labor enjoyed by rich white land owners in the early centuries of this nation's history, while denying all wealth and standing to the descendants of those who literally toiled in the fields, being separated from their spouses and children on a whim, and whose due earnings cannot reasonably be calculated without acknowledging both the labor and the suffering of a people stolen from their homeland and whose descendants have been denied their history.
However, when prosperity finally came to the descendants of poor white immigrants in the mid 20th Century, it did not yet come to the descendants of the slaves on whose labor that prosperity was built. The book does not market itself as a justification for reparations. In fact, I don't believe the word is used at all in the book, but the essays themselves thoroughly establish that in fact American wealth and prosperity is owed in large part to the free labor enjoyed by rich white land owners in the early centuries of this nation's history, while denying all wealth and standing to the descendants of those who literally toiled in the fields, being separated from their spouses and children on a whim, and whose due earnings cannot reasonably be calculated without acknowledging both the labor and the suffering of a people stolen from their homeland and whose descendants have been denied their history.
August 30, 2021
Far too often, binaries define our understanding of American history. The Revolutionary War, for example, was a bloody conflict between Monarchical, imperial sympathizers and freedom-fighting agitators. The American Civil War was an even bloodier fight between Unionists and Confederates, North and South, slave abolitionists and slave masters. In the case of the American Civil War, this kind of binary thinking obscures the interconnected counters of 19th-century American culture and economy. We must, as many German idealists argued in the late 18th and early 19th century, think dialectically, which is to say, we must eschew binaries. This is what Slavery's Capitalism does.
Slavery's Capitalism is a robust suite of essays that explore the complexity and relationality of 18th and 19th-century American economics. Simply put, the boundary between North and South blurs when we reckon with how Northern bankers, investors, and merchants accumulated wealth and power through exploitative Southern slave labor, even if they did so indirectly. Furthermore, Slavery's Capitalism blurs the boundaries between national and international economies. The exploitative contours of Southern chattel slavery extended beyond the United States; merchants, for example, in Great Britain profited from inexpensive, slave-produced cotton.
Understanding slavery's effects in these terms teach us how interconnected we are. As Slavery's Capitalism argues, we cannot vilify Southern slave masters solely because they put whips to the backs of the enslaved; they did so, in part, because there was a market for the commodities enslaved people produced.
Slavery's Capitalism is a robust suite of essays that explore the complexity and relationality of 18th and 19th-century American economics. Simply put, the boundary between North and South blurs when we reckon with how Northern bankers, investors, and merchants accumulated wealth and power through exploitative Southern slave labor, even if they did so indirectly. Furthermore, Slavery's Capitalism blurs the boundaries between national and international economies. The exploitative contours of Southern chattel slavery extended beyond the United States; merchants, for example, in Great Britain profited from inexpensive, slave-produced cotton.
Understanding slavery's effects in these terms teach us how interconnected we are. As Slavery's Capitalism argues, we cannot vilify Southern slave masters solely because they put whips to the backs of the enslaved; they did so, in part, because there was a market for the commodities enslaved people produced.
August 12, 2021
Very well written and full with data about the growth of capital and the capitalist economy in America (north and south) and how it was fueled by slavery. Property rights protection, catholic church and higher education institutions, financial institutions, government policies and institutions, and global trade, ALL have been heavily influenced by slavery. Curious facts: where was the majority of the New England whaling oil sold? The Caribbean sugar plantations. Where was the majority of Southern states produced flour sold? Slave owing Brazil. Globalization existed 300 years ago but fewer people realized it.
What changed it all? The hypothesis in the last essay is is universal education in the north. I didn’t know that there were fears among some in the North that slavery will take hold there too. I guess free labor was a very tempting proposition.
The economic interests of those times were just insane, and it’s insane how many lives were sacrificed for them. I guess, 200 years from now someone will be publishing a book about the insane exploitation of the planet because the economic interests didn’t change, only the focus of exploitation shifted from people to earth instead.
All in all, a very interesting read. I’d recommend it.
What changed it all? The hypothesis in the last essay is is universal education in the north. I didn’t know that there were fears among some in the North that slavery will take hold there too. I guess free labor was a very tempting proposition.
The economic interests of those times were just insane, and it’s insane how many lives were sacrificed for them. I guess, 200 years from now someone will be publishing a book about the insane exploitation of the planet because the economic interests didn’t change, only the focus of exploitation shifted from people to earth instead.
All in all, a very interesting read. I’d recommend it.
November 26, 2025
It’s fine when you are looking to learn something about economic development in the South, not necessarily about capitalism.
I thought chapter 2 was quite good and convincingly argued that scientific management had its prototype in slave driving.
Chapter 4 I thought was revealing and shows the value of the political-Marxist analysis of Southern slavery. This chapter was about how the mechanical reaper was used as a labor saving technology in wheat harvesting using slave labor. However, as you would expect given Charles Post’s writing on the fixedness of labor under slavery (they can’t be fired if a new technology makes them obsolete), this was only necessary for planters because of the incredibly short timeframe under which prime wheat for the market can be harvested. This specific condition made innovation necessary in a way that was not encouraged under other crop systems such as cotton where innovation in labor saving technology was impeded by not being able to fire excess laborers.
I thought chapter 2 was quite good and convincingly argued that scientific management had its prototype in slave driving.
Chapter 4 I thought was revealing and shows the value of the political-Marxist analysis of Southern slavery. This chapter was about how the mechanical reaper was used as a labor saving technology in wheat harvesting using slave labor. However, as you would expect given Charles Post’s writing on the fixedness of labor under slavery (they can’t be fired if a new technology makes them obsolete), this was only necessary for planters because of the incredibly short timeframe under which prime wheat for the market can be harvested. This specific condition made innovation necessary in a way that was not encouraged under other crop systems such as cotton where innovation in labor saving technology was impeded by not being able to fire excess laborers.
June 6, 2020
This book is another in the movement to rightly place slavery as the primarty engine that built the capitalist economy of America. It expands on the theme from Half Has Never Been Told by Edward Baptist. It helps erase the fiction that slavery was an antiquated labor form that was a drag on the thriving US industrial economy which dominated US economic historical thought until recently. The essays do a masterful job of uncovering hidden truths and documenting the ubiquitous imprint of slavery on everything from modern business practices, financial/equity banking, sustainment of West Indies slave economies (fully dependent on the goods & supplies of New England), insurance, Northern manufacturing, etc. The book was chocked full of examples that cement its premise. However, some of the economics (my worst college subject) discussions were long & convoluted.
June 15, 2021
This exhaustive economic examination of American Slavery is telling. More so, it is surprisingly complex yet comprehensive. The contributors are careful to examine, without emotional or political stance, America’s dependence upon the forced labor of millions of Africans and their unfortunate descendants. The interconnection of the global economy of the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries proves how very complicit all European governments and official Christian churches l, Protestant and Catholic alike, were upon the forced labor of Africans. According to the contributors of this volume, it was the political beliefs of the newly formed Republican Party, not religious indignation or capitalistic progress, that ended the grotesque institution of African slavery in the paradoxical “free” American republic.
February 18, 2022
"And one would find that there was not an individual in the whole country whose opinion is not in the greater or less degree acted upon by an influence which was set in motion by a Southern bribe.
When economic times were good, the committee continued, the wealth produced by slavery was the common plunder of the country. Northern merchants, northern mechanics, and manufacturers; northern editors, publishers, and printers; Northern hotels, stages, steamboats, railroads, canal boats; northern banks, northern schoolmasters, northern artists, northern colleges, and northern ministers of the gospel all get their share of emolument from this general robbery of the enslaved."
Slavery's Capitalism, Sven Beckert & Seth Rockman
When economic times were good, the committee continued, the wealth produced by slavery was the common plunder of the country. Northern merchants, northern mechanics, and manufacturers; northern editors, publishers, and printers; Northern hotels, stages, steamboats, railroads, canal boats; northern banks, northern schoolmasters, northern artists, northern colleges, and northern ministers of the gospel all get their share of emolument from this general robbery of the enslaved."
Slavery's Capitalism, Sven Beckert & Seth Rockman
August 12, 2021
This book is a collection of economic studies about how the economic development of this country was based upon the commerce in slavery. The most impressive aspect of the book is the depth of source materials upon which the various articles are based. Another impressive aspect is the scope of the articles which include the economic effects of the slave trade on both the economies of the South and the north. The book is an implicit endorsement of teaching of critical race theory in the schools. And, the book is an implicit criticism of any claim of "American Exceptionalism"--at least from an economic viewpoint not dependent upon the slave trade.
January 24, 2023
This is a great collection of essays examining the ways slavery was not merely a regional phenomena with no economic impact. In fact, I would say the selected authors do an excellent job articulating the different ways slavery as an institution in the United States had profound importance for American Economic, Technological, Financial, and Law histories. Even further still, several points are made that show how slavery in the United States was hugely important for international markets, as well. I would say that this is an excellent collection of scholarship, but it’s really written with other scholars in mind - it is not necessarily accessible to the average layperson.
August 4, 2024
This series of essays is not an easy read, and it is not designed for pool-side reading. It is technical, but if you have the patience to move through the material, it provides insight not just into how the value of the enslaved was computed both in life and in death but also into how this monetization influenced American economic development. To appreciate the book, you need to appreciate that the explanations and data are not the same as justification. It's a wonderful, informative book for people interested in human behavior or the history or economics of enslavement. Just don't expect to sit down and read it in one sitting.
April 13, 2023
This set of VERY loosely connected essays is kind of hit or miss. Some were very enlightening like the one about slave suicide and homicide extending the slave’s commodity-based life beyond the grave, the entries about merchant vessels transporting spaces within and without the United States, and the coverage of slaves by insurance. Some, like the one on Catholic inequality (?) in the colonies and early US, though, only grazed against either of the supposed subjects of the collection: capitalism and slavery.
April 16, 2023
En interessant samling tekster som virkelig understreker viktigheten av slaveriet i amerika. Høydepunktene for meg var kapitlene som tok for seg hvordan ulike disputter rundt slaveri ble behandlet av rettsapparatet, samt hvordan slaveri var utslagsgivende for både økonomisk og sosial utvikling, som for eksempel i utdanningsinstitusjoner. Det er interessant, for ikke å si forferdelig at det til slutt var økonomiske hensyn som førte til holdningsendring, og ganske illustrerende for omfattende, systematiske problemer verden står ovenfor i dag.
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