Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South

When Eugene Genovese, now a senior figure in slavery studies, was a young scholar, the question of whether slavery was "profitable" or "as profitable as free labor" was a vexed one in the academy. These early essays consider the question and the answer he gives is no. This is undoubtedly correct, but the mystery to me has always been why anybody thought there was a controversy. A drive through the South around 1960 with its tarpaper shacks, coupled with a drive through the Midwest with its comfortable clapboard houses should have given a hint. Even if the difference had been slight or nil, there is a social factor: If the southern agricultural system had been highly profitable, then necessarily all the profits would have been concentrated in a few hands, in contrast with the North and West. It might not have been obvious at the time, but the example of England, then developing a similar split without slavery, would have hinted at coming problems. The South needed land reform as much as it needed emancipation. Genovese is concerned, though, with the more immediate prospects of reform (taking the word in its most expansive meaning, to include those who thought that reform meant making slavery bigger and better). According to Genovese, the form that slavery had taken by the 19th century, coupled with the world market for a single staple crop and the marked difference in farming opportunities between the Upper and the Lower South meant that all parties were on a snubbing chain. The moderate reformers who wished to make slave labor more efficient were stymied by lack of capital and other forces, and the more ambitious reformers who hoped to see American slavery evolve to a form of modified, more or less free labor were even less able to move. More interesting is his judgment that those who wanted to extend slavery into the western territories, Cuba or Mexico also could not realistically have done so because of the construction of the markets. This is somewhat speculative but persuasive. Genovese is not an economic determinist. He pounds on the idea that the planters could not make moves in their own economic interest because these would have weakened them politically and (he makes less of this) in their social status. They were caught in a development trap, partly of their own devising. It can happen anywhere. Just recently Robert Rubin tried lamely to explain why the huge bank he helped direct failed to avoid the dangerous mortgaging practices that nearly brought it and the rest of the economy down: He claimed to have known the risks but said the bank could not afford not to participate. The conclusion I would draw from that -- as from Southern history -- is that some cases are beyond the reach of meliorists; they can be fixed only by revolutionary means. The South had its revolution, although the old regime made a comeback that retarded economic changes for another century; but it finally got its effective revolution and has prospered at