This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I know that slavery was integral to the economy of the southern states, but when people say "slavery built America", it seems like they're implying that it was integral to the northern states, too. My biases, which I am actively seeking to counteract, tell me that anyone who says slavery built America is ignoring history.. but y'know, I don't actually know that much about history. I just remember learning in high school that the southern economy was agricultural and sustained by unpaid labor, while the north wasn't agricultural and didn't have any financial need for slavery.
How important was slavery to the north, financially speaking? If the textile factories weren't able to get cotton from the south, would they have ceased to be, or would they have just gotten cotton elsewhere? (Like from overseas?)
There is no good economic argument that slavery was an integral part of the north's development, or the south's in terms of opportunity cost. You can clearly see the impact of slavery as an institution was highly negative just by comparing outcomes across borders of states with and without slavery. Slavery's incentives were totally counterproductive to long term economic growth. It shouldn't take a genius to see why--it's not worth it to build up skilled labor, either slave or non slave, with slavery dominating the labor market. It's not too dissimilar to the resource curse where you're incentivized to dig money out of the ground instead of build up long term economic prospects like education and infrastructure. It might be worse because even on an individual level people have little reason to better themselves whereas resource curses mostly suck up expensive corporate and state level capital.
Can we actually do this, though? How extricable is "slavery" from "depends on cash-crop latifundia" in a description of the 19th century American political economy? Every study and monograph I've seen answers this with "not very," though there have been repeated efforts to look at the few examples of "industrial slavery" that existed to try and tease out counterfactuals (e.g. Tredegar works in Richmond, a few mills in places like Atlanta, and a few of the border states like Maryland and Delaware).
Cash-crop latifundia always and everywhere wind up placing ordinary workers in fairly spectacular poverty, regardless of whether they're technically "free" or not. Rubber plantations in the Congo, modern cinnamon harvesting in Madagascar, and the various cash-crop economies of the Atlantic world all display similar labor relations.
Yes. The deep south cash crop states were not the only slave states. You pointed out border states yourself, many of which are quite temperate in climate. There was no reason for them to be so undeveloped compared to new england, and even some of the relatively underpopulated great lakes states. Virginia is actually an ideal place for industrialization--lots of cheap coal, lots of riverways that can transport coal and then power industry in cities, and lots of amazing places for huge ports. Yet, Virginia never really industrialized.
Studies have actually been done, although the veracity will always be fuzzy with 150+ year old data, they never suggest the effects are "not very" large.
A lot of borders are arbitrary, but the outcomes are not. The policy of a state and culture of a region are maybe the most important single factor for economic development. Slave states vs non slave are maybe the best example outside of east and west germany.
Maryland and Delaware are very small. Delaware has always been, more or less, a hinterland of Philly. Maryland, on the other hand wasn't that undeveloped - Baltimore was one of the most important seaports in the U.S., and until the opening of the Erie Canal was the major hub for the Ohio Valley via the National Road. The Erie Canal killed the road traffic, and the City diversified into railroads and cast-iron work. It slowly declined in importance relative to NYC and Philly - but not nearly as much or as fast as New Orleans did - and it remained a major locus of immigration and innovation. None of that had much to do with slavery, iirc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link