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American Negro Slavery
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Slavery is the ubiquitous institution in human history
Stanley Engerman
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Formal Institution Informal institution
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
Command/centralized
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Economic Decision Making
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Trans Atlantic 25%
North Africa/Europe and Asia
25%
Intra Africa 50%
New World
Europe Africa
1600 25 100 50
1700 3 120 45
Today 310 500 1 Billion
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Negro males listed in the 1850 census were engaged in fifty-four different occupations; only 9.9 percent of them were unskilled laborers. Some of them even held jobs as architects, bookbinders, brokers, engineers, jewelers, merchants, and musicians.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
draymen, porters,carpenters, masons, bricklayers, painters, plasterers, tinners,
coopers, wheelwrights,cabinetmakers,blacksmiths,shoemakers, millers, bakers, and barbers
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Tobacco per pound 0.50Corn per bushel 0.969Sweet potatoes per bushel 3.02Wheat per bushel 3.24
Cotton per bale 271.00
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Demand for labor is a derived demandPrice of outputProductivity of labor
Free laborIndentured servantsRedeeptionersDebt peonageSlavery
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College 04/18/23
LibertyIndividualismLaissez faireEgalitarianismPopulismExcept for slaves – their position was increasingly subject to greater coercion
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
The major
expansive force
in the US
economy from
1800 -1850:
Douglas North
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Time on the Cross Fogel and Engerman
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
To this point it might be useful to pause and consider this nascent slavery in the United States along the lines of economic growth, welfare and decision making.
Economic growth – hazyEconomic welfare – general improvement for
society – slave welfare evolving – much less free – we’ll see what Fogel has to say in a minute
Decision making – evolution overall
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
antebellum Southern farms were 35 percent more efficient overall than Northern ones and that slave farms in the New South were 53 percent more efficient than free farms in either North or South.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
This would mean that a slave farm that is otherwise identical to a free farm (in terms of the amount of land, livestock, machinery and labor used) would produce output worth 53 percent more than the free.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
“Economic history is about the performance of economies through time.” North
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Are you better off today, than . . .
Braudel – material lifeExamplesLive longerLive “better” reduction in average work week from68 to 36 – seems to be a preference for leisure over work
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Adam Smith – system of natural libertyemergent and evolutionary – a spontaneous order that allows participants in society to use their own knowledge for their own aims without coercion
Hayek
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Contra to Smith’s system of natural libertyCentralizedCoercivePlannedAdaptively inefficient
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
FlexibleError and TrialReceptive to change
It is adaptive rather than allocative efficiency which is the key to long run growth.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Successful political/economic systems have evolved flexible institutional structures that can survive the shocks and changes that are a part of successful evolution.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
VoluntaryInvoluntary
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Buy and SellLife timeInherited through the mother
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Nature of man – angels or humans?Theory of Moral Sentiments – impartial spectator
as a mechanism to address humanity
Slavery inefficientThe Wealth of Nations – pursuit of self love will
guide society to ends that no one could either anticipate or intend
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Was Adam Smith correct?Who benefited?What was the nature of the institution?
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Slave auction recordsEstate inventoriesPlantation recordsSlave narrativesAbolitionist materialsChurch records
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Slaves worked more intensivelyMethods of production – gang systemPlantation v diversify farmSlaves responded to incentives?
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Negative – Simon Legree
Reduced RationsPrevent marriageSell familyWhippingsMutilationDeath
Positive – InducementsDays offPrivate plotsCabinsMarriagePayManumission
Sundays offBonuses in cash or in kind, or Quit early if they finished tasks quickly. Keep part of the harvest Own small plotsSell their own crops.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
In antebellum Louisiana, slaves even had under their control a sum of money called a peculium. This served as a sort of working capital, enabling slaves to establish thriving businesses that often benefited their masters as well.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
because slaves constituted a considerable portion of individual wealth, masters fed and treated their slaves reasonably well. . . , teenaged and adult slaves lived in conditions similar to -- sometimes better than -- those enjoyed by many free laborers of the same period.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
US South - slaves
West Indian Slaves
Africans White workers in the US
102.0 88.0 89.0 100.0
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Calories – potatoes v sweet potatoesLiving conditions – city v ruralType of work – indoors v outdoorsImpactHealthChild mortalityHeight
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
The entire US and world – cotton was the grease for the Industrial Evolution – textile industryTextile manufacturers – increasingly inexpensive inputMerchant capitalists – financing and shipping raw materials and finished goodsTransportation
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Banking and financeConsumers (greater access to and much cheaper clothing)In short, . . . the south benefited and, to a greater extent
THE NORTH
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
1800 – 1860Prices secular declineIncreasing output per acre and in totalExpansion of the activityProfits
Adaptively efficient?
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
• Founding fathers in the late 18th century believed slavery would die out within 50 years
• What happened . . .
• The Cotton Gin04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
The immenent economist Abe Lincoln, in 1858 said that, with his plan, slavery would die out?Steve Douglas said, ok, lets accept your assertion . . . When?
Abe said . . . 100 years
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Some would argue that the American Negro slavery was so adaptively efficient . . .New areas for cotton growthIncreasing innovation and productivityExpansion of types of activityIncreasing complexity of activity
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
AN ADAPTIVELY EFFICIENT
INSTITUTION
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Leads to economic growthDoes not necessarily lead to an increase in individual welfareCannot persist with coercive economic decision making . . . in the long run.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
UN – official end 1970China - 1910Thailand - 1905Brazil - 1888Cuba - 1886US - 1863Haiti - 1804
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
1860 4 million slaves with a value of 4 billion dollars
This was the size of the US economy (estimated GDP)
This was 40 per cent of total bank assets in the US
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
600,000 dead (over 50% to disease)600,000 injuredIn 1863 Union estimated daily cost was
2.5 million10 billion in direct costs by both sides14 billion in pensions to surviving
soldiersInflationCoercion and loss of liberty
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
NET DIRECT COSTS OF THE CIVIL WARin millions of $1860 discounted to June 1861 @ 6%
Category Union Confederacy
Government expenditures
2,291 1,011
Labor Costs UndercountedBecause of Draft
11 20
less Labor Costs OvercountedBecause of Risk Premium
-256 -178
Net Cost of Resources
Destruction of Physical Capital
0 1,487
Destruction of Human Capital
Killed 955 684
Wounded 365 261
Total 3,366 3,286
Source: Claudia Goldin and Frank Lewis, "The Economic Costs of the American Civil War: Estimates and Implications," Journal of Economic History
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
The Costs of the Civil War (Millions of 1860 Dollars) South North Total
Direct Costs: Government Expenditures 1,032 2,302 3,334 Physical Destruction 1,487 1,487 Loss of Human Capital 767 1,064 1,831 Total Direct Costs of the War 3,286 3,366 6,652 Per capita
376
148
212
Indirect Costs: Total Decline in Consumption 6,190 1,149 7,339 Less: Effect of Emancipation 1,960 Effect of Cotton Prices 1,670 Total Indirect Costs of The War 2,560 1,149 3,709 Per capita
293
51
118
Total Costs of the War 5,846 4,515 10,361 Source: Ransom, (1998: 51, Table 3-1); Goldin and Lewis. (1975; 1978)
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Government borrowing Loss of economic growth during the
period 1861-1865 (never to be recovered)
Expansion of the doctrine of Total WarGiven the cost to eventually eliminate,
this institution had deep economic underpinings, was productive and, in aggregate, stimulative to growth and
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Doomed to failure due to the coercive nature of the institution, not due to the moral reprehension of the practice.
Adaptively efficient institutions persist (Adam Smith was wrong)
Slavery is a moral vice (Adam Smith was right)
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College
Institutions that are adaptively efficient and coercive can be very, very difficult to change peacefully.
04/18/23Greg Pratt, Mesa Community College