Who Were the Real Lords of the Lash?

A moral-economy market-logic historical finger exercise:

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[Bruce Wilder]

Of course, one could also argue, with more justice, that the slaveholders were the only beneficiaries. For Hayekian reasons, mill owners and tailors and the wearers of shirts had no interest, no control and no particular stake in the details of how cotton was grown in North America. When slavery was abolished, there was no penalty passed along to purchasers of cotton shirts or denim jeans. No one stepped in to say, slavery is over now, sorry, you can't benefit from cotton quite so much now.

Slavery involved a straightforward transfer from slaves to slaveowners. Arguments about incidence should not be allowed to obscure that.

And, if you are going to teach microeconomics, teach rents.

[andthenyoufall]

Every year Brad posts this thought experiment, and every year the commenters, in the fashion of a Greek chorus, chime in to say "But the abolition of slavery would liquidate the slave-as-capital-good, so even if the Southern aristocracy wasn't earning abnormal profits from its human capital goods, it was still benefiting far more from slavery, and the spread of slavery, than anyone else."

But year after year, Brad decides that the industrial proletariat was the real beneficiary of slavery.

Relatedly, historical prices of cotton (scroll down for pre-civil war prices): http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=33770

[Bloix]

andthenyoufall's comment will make no sense to anyone who doesn't realize that my comment on slaves as capital goods has been disappeared. I expect this comment to disappear as well, once Prof DeLong wakes up on the West Coast. I really don't get why the good professor won't debate this issue.

[Luther Vandross]

Robin Einhorn's book on this issue sheds a lot of light on the relationship between slavery and tax policy...

[JK]

Meanwhile every historian, sociologist and political scientist would like make economists think more carefully about what they mean by 'benefit'.

In Manchester, behind the townhall, you can find a statue of Abraham Lincoln. In the midst of the cotton famine caused by the blockade of Southern States that was causing tremendous hardship amongst the working people of Manchester on hearing of Emancipation, met and resolved as follows:

'To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States:

As citizens of Manchester, assembled at the Free-Trade Hall, we beg to express our fraternal sentiments toward you and your country. We rejoice in your greatness as an outgrowth of England, whose blood and language you share, whose orderly and legal freedom you have applied to new circumstances, over a region immeasurably greater than our own. We honor your Free States, as a singularly happy abode for the working millions where industry is honored. One thing alone has, in the past, lessened our sympathy with your country and our confidence in it—we mean the ascendency of politicians who not merely maintained negro slavery, but desired to extend and root it more firmly. Since we have discerned, however, that the victory of the free North, in the war which has so sorely distressed us as well as afflicted you, will strike off the fetters of the slave, you have attracted our warm and earnest sympathy. We joyfully honor you, as the President, and the Congress with you, for many decisive steps toward practically exemplifying your belief in the words of your great founders: "All men are created free and equal." You have procured the liberation of the slaves in the district around Washington, and thereby made the centre of your Federation visibly free. You have enforced the laws against the slave-trade, and kept up your fleet against it, even while every ship was wanted for service in your terrible war. You have nobly decided to receive ambassadors from the negro republics of Hayti and Liberia, thus forever renouncing that unworthy prejudice which refuses the rights of humanity to men and women on account of their color. In order more effectually to stop the slave-trade, you have made with our Queen a treaty, which your Senate has ratified, for the right of mutual search. Your Congress has decreed freedom as the law forever in the vast unoccupied or half unsettled Territories which are directly subject to its legislative power. It has offered pecuniary aid to all States which will enact emancipation locally, and has forbidden your Generals to restore fugitive slaves who seek their protection. You have entreated the slave-masters to accept these moderate offers; and after long and patient waiting, you, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, have appointed to-morrow, the first of January, 1863, as the day of unconditional freedom for the slaves of the rebel States. Heartily do we congratulate you and your country on this humane and righteous course. We assume that you cannot now stop short of a complete uprooting of slavery. It would not become us to dictate any details, but there are broad principles of humanity which must guide you. If complete emancipation in some States be deferred, though only to a predetermined day, still in the interval, human beings should not be counted chattels. Women must have the rights of chastity and maternity, men the rights of husbands, masters the liberty of manumission. Justice demands for the black, no less than for the white, the protection of law—that his voice be heard in your courts. Nor must any such abomination be tolerated as slave-breeding States, and a slave market—if you are to earn the high reward of all your sacrifices, in the approval of the universal brotherhood and of the Divine Father. It is for your free country to decide whether any thing but immediate and total emancipation can secure the most indispensable rights of humanity against the inveterate wickedness of local laws and local executives. We implore you, for your own honor and welfare, not to faint in your providential mission. While your enthusiasm is aflame, and the tide of events runs high, let the work be finished effectually. Leave no root of bitterness to spring up and work fresh misery to your children. It is a mighty task, indeed, to reorganize the industry not only of four millions of the colored race, but of five millions of whites. Nevertheless, the vast progress you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot upon civilization and Christianity—chattel slavery—during your Presidency will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honored and revered by posterity. We are certain that such a glorious consummation will cement Great Britain to the United States in close and enduring regards. Our interests, moreover, are identified with yours. We are truly one people, though locally separate. And if you have any ill-wishers here, be assured they are chiefly those who oppose liberty at home, and that they will be powerless to stir up quarrels between us, from the very day in which your country becomes, undeniably and without exception, the home of the free. Accept our high admiration of your firmness in upholding the proclamation of freedom.'

The plaque beneath Lincoln's statue records his acknowledgement of the letter, three weeks later.

Meanwhile The Manchester Guardian, speaking for the city's capitalists wrote of Lincoln that 'of his rule, we can never speak except as a series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty'.

Did the destitute workers, thrown out of their jobs, not understand that they were benefiting from slavery?

[andthenyoufall]

Destitute workers clearly are not good at surplus incidence analysis.