Did Slavery Drive the US Economy? - James Oakes
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- Опубликовано: 27 авг 2024
- Historian James Oakes critiques the 1619 Project’s assertion that Southern slavery fueled Northern prosperity and turned the US into a “financial colossus” and discusses how we can better understand the relationship between slavery and American capitalism.
For the Record is a Jacobin channel miniseries dedicated to debunking historical myths and distortions through conversations with scholars on the left.
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Also, why not look at the use of *wage slavery* and the exploitation of labor, especially marginalized groups like so called recently "emancipated" former slaves that were forced to take on, undesirable, extremely low paying, often dangerous jobs or face starvation?
Coming from a black man cheap labor from Asian countries had the greatest impact
Howard Zinn wrote, "There could not have been any industrialization in north America and Europe if there were no plantation. And if there were no slavery and there could not have been any plantation
Truly an oversimplification. 1) It ignores labor value and asset leverage. 2) It assumes industrialization occurred in a vacuum independent of and unrelated to the exiting economy. It's like concluding that Amazon's growth and market valuation is unrelated to obsolete technology it no longer uses.
There is a lot missing here. To even start the industrialization, money was required. The ships that sailed out of Boston made a fortune from selling slavery-made products, not just cotton, but sugar and rum and whiskey as well.
Also, when the workers in the north have slave produced clothes, they pay less for it, so that reduces the opportunity costs for their labour.
This is a very incomplete look at the topic and could have greatly benefitted from an economist on the team.
Report the vid as misinformation. All this channel does is lying and gaslighting
capitalism needed worker exploitation, not just slavery. also, cotton as an export crop has a significance outside the 5% of gdp. it was needed to bring industrial tools into the country.
They speak of the industrial revolution like it was some booming time for workers outside of slavery. There were no workers rights in those factories and we have a long history of workers dying due to dangerous working conditions.
And to pretend that slavery being in the market had no effect and that it was just happening by itself is disingenuous and reeks of downplaying the long term effects of slavery that still have reverberations to this very day.
@@mayroque5296 well what do you expect from the buffer class, just like dem folks they also let us live rent free in dey minds.
Jacobin is reactionary right gaslighting and lying nonsense. 😵💫
Weren't a lot of trade ships in Britain made with cotton picked by slaves?
If you are referring to Marx's view of exploitation, and slave labor, that the business owner's (the capitalist) profits should be shared equally with the industrial laborer, then you are incorrect, even if we hold that valued position to be true. The Marxist laborer is still a voluntary employee, and can leave when profits are nonexistent or unacceptable. The chattel slave cannot.
Furthermore, slavery and cotton didn't bring industrial tools to the northern colonies. Tools were either imported from England or forged with raw materials in the north. Systems of roads were so poor and European restrictions on inter-colony trading made it easier and more profitable to ship to England. Almost all cotton was shipped to England in the 1700's from the Chesapeake Bay. So cotton had almost no impact on northern colony development until after invention of the Whitney cotton mill and northern spinning mill in the 1790's. The cotton mill increased production to a level in the early-mid 1800's that would eventually supply 75% of the world. But that was very long after industry, agriculture, and a robust economy was effectively established in the north.
All Americans did not benefit from slavery in the 1800’s but 3/5 is in the constitution, 14 amendments allow for involuntary servitude, tobacco was used to finance the war of independence to France.
Good to hear your voice again Jen ❤.
good to see jacobin is back to making videos
Slavery doesn’t expand the consumer base. A growing consumer population is what exponentially kicks capitalism into higher gears.
By Crom! A Jacobin video! Fantastic!
Welcome back, Jen! You're a sight for sore eyes. I look forward to seeing more episodes of For the Record...
Slavery stimulated the economy, but not like industrialization & when we compare the two it's clear to see why slavery lost out. That said, idk if anyone every disagreed with that notion. National GDP is also only one way to look at it. slavery allowed the southern states to keep a strategic advantage when selling cotton.
Excited! Miss Jacobin videos so much
James Medison bought a slave for 11 or 12 dollar selling him for 257 dollar. Calculate the profit margin
Are you a Muslim?
Is this a conservative or liberal channel???
Liberal clearly lol
@@Vsmug LOL I can't tell
@@lamartruth6601 it's a socialist channel that uses historical and dialectical materialism and Marxist analysis. Its not beholden to the traps of identity politics or mainstream liberal narratives so that's why it might sound confusing. That being said, I don't agree with everything on their channel.
Jacobin is a reactionary right / neoliberal gaslighting & lying nonsensical cult. 😵💫
Great to see you guys back and please bring back nando vila
Nah these guys are cringe, nando deserves better
Where did the industrializing north get its start up capital?
vital ideas presented digestibly and lucidly - and so few people get to hear them.
Bravo For the record
Thank you Jen! And I agree with the sentiment that the eradication of slavery has had a far greater positive historical impact on our society than the negative impact wrought by slavery.
While waiting for the comeback, I subscribed to the magazine.
Keep up the good work.
It the Jacobin pod back? May it be so!
But the US had such high protectionist tariffs after the Civil War and only free trade is capitalism. Protectionism is mercantilism.
Is there a place where we can suggest potential topics for future episodes?
Anti Black Jacobin back at it again!
Slavery, sometimes called "communism," is where you get paid whatever the rulers decide that you should get paid.
Great material I think it is more common to recognize the original sin being genocide of Natives. Also Slavery was the only thing that made the Americas as we know it possible. That included the indentured servants from Europe before the introduction of chattel slavery to the US. So the argument that slavery was not the foundation or the engine for America can only be true if it is true that the Americas would be the same as we know it without slavery existing. No one makes that argument.
Indeed no one is making that argument. However, I think the point being made in the video is that it is a component factor in the makeup of the history of America rather than the sole purpose and economic driver, as it’s made out to be in liberal historical revisionist thought movements like the 1619 project.
I think the case being made here is not to ignore the existence of slavery or it’s impact but to situate it more properly in the understanding of the past, rather than as singular prism through which the entire history of both America and capitalism is filtered.
Are slavery and native indian fighting and relocation truly sins in pre-colonial and early colonial America? Or were they norms of the time that were only just becoming questionable to a tiny population of 17th & 18th century minds? Slavery's existence, including chattel, was recorded when the world's first documents were written thousands of years ago. Successfully attacking neighboring tribes, towns, and cities was the mark of great leadership, a means of pro-active defense, and an avenue to greater wealth, including slaves and land.
@@mattg3789 my opinion these moments show human nature. People however argued right vs wrong and it was not a small percentage who thought genocide and slavery was wrong just a small number among elites who thought it was wrong to do it to outsiders. Also I’m not sure that chattel slavery existed in the way it did in the US. Even in Colonial America Africans gained rights through court petitions etc all taken away once England dominated US colonialism.
That is a good point: that many people "knew" it was wrong regardless what the various elites (government, religious, mercantile, etc...) thought. However, Africans and Native Americans also practiced in slavery. So, it would probably have been a very few in the 1600 and early 1700's that were against, and chiefly those who suffered from it. Neither African or American Indian slave holders embraced the elitist European Enlightment values of that era. Even as late as the U.S. Civil War, when the abolition movement was very strong, many Northern soldiers in the U.S. Civil War still did not view slavery as a worthy reason for fighting. I'll add two more separate posts that are very important in explaining why "Original Sin" is not very accurate.
The roots of abolition begin with the 1600's, the European Enlightenment era, and John Locke, Quakers, and Protestants in particular. These viewpoints were not widely accepted and seldom practiced. Only a few with an advanced educatiion were even aware of the Enlightenment abolition concept. Some of the Quakers, the earliest and most ardent practicioners of abolition, still owned slaves in the 1700's. Thomas Jefferson's Constitutional ideals were based upon Enlightenment values. Yet, he was an 18th century Southern slave owner.
Bottom line we will never know if America would of been a economic powerhouse without slavery because it happened. The immigrants that came to the New World struggled to survive, they didn’t want to survive like the indigenous people, (living with nature) they wanted riches, and to conquer the new world. Many new settlers were not agriculturally knowledgeable or had the strength to work the land, so naturally they had to force a group of people to do those things for them. Whether some immigrants did not personally take part in the disgrace of Slavery, they benefited from a system of economic development which they did not benefit from in the old world.
*The Transatlantic Slave Trade aka Devarim **28:15**-68 = Bereshit **15:12**-14*
HI JACOBIN MY FAVORITE INFORMATION .
Slavery definitely drove wages down... not up. Of course, that assumes a kind of a perfect nationwide labor market. That's a bit too much of an assumption.
Upload regularly. I read articles on the website but at least have a podcast
I think Professor Heather Clark Richardson, writer of to make men free would take exception to your omission of how the Civil War itself generated avenues of wealth. Which this nitwit conveniently left out. It was the birth of the military-industrial machine.
The key point, expressed as "although cotton was the country's main export it accounted for less than 5% of the nation's GDP prior to the civil war" would have been better given in greater detail and hammered home. Using > rather than < in the graphic (at 1.51) was stupid. Otherwise I welcome this video. I think slave cotton helped the US economy, but without it America would still have become the greatest manufacturing country by 1900.
WHAT HAPPENED TO JACOBIN???
It accompanied through the pandemic confinement but once back in Catalonia and back to working I had to focus on our local political problems.
Nando, the Armenian woman, Bhaskar, Sirota, all of you had magnific content.
Sirota's youtube channel has only very short videos with extremely low viewership.
After the irreplaceable, enduringly painful passing away of Michael Brooks, American democratic socialism is doomed if a source of economic sociological information as Jacobin does not exist.
WHAT A CRYING SHAME.
It be a shame to let the Jacobin youtube channel that you built up die. You could probably transition your videos to something less intensive on hosts. High production educational videos and maybe animations. Maybe do round up video's of achievements the left has done for the month or something. That be successful union activity, positive legislation or candidate victories, to coop business alternatives.
That we can actually see positive change on the ground and not just talking about theory of a better world
yes
Emphasis on HELPED ❤
I would suggest these videos on American slavery, ruclips.net/video/Ajn9g5Gsv98/видео.html and ruclips.net/video/83eJfEFFZ74/видео.html&t. They are not long but are thorough in the presentation. We should remember at least this one thing. Cotton was king before the war.
Jacobin, host a debate on the channel?
Don't let me down, I'm waiting on the black person from Jacobin video on their support for scott Adams recent rant
and yet still no reparations
Reparations was paid - the country of Liberia was given to ex-slaves as well as all the programs LBJ put in towards the Black community. Plus, people paid with their life as soldiers to free Blacks.
You would have to go back to African Chiefs and Muslim Arabs who colonized Africa to get more reparations. "The Legacy of Arab Islam in Africa" by John Azhuma
Coming from a black man I don’t agree with this
Propaganda/cheap labor from Asian countries drove the country
@@tboog8356 lol you're not black
@@tboog8356 lmao you're not black. Get lost.
It's like you didn't even watch the fucking video 😂
Ok so no one is going to comment on this guy looking like Flea? Aight
Whilst I do think the view that slavery built the nation(whole piece) is clearly false.
I don't see how it can be claimed that large populations working at maximal rates of exploitation doesn't result in a more competitive price for the commodity produced.
And whilst the ends of production end up in the hands of the bourgeoisie almost entirely regardless, the interdependent nature of economy would result in a bolstering from this exceptionally high rate of exploitation which would result in economic expansion.
Obviously the books would have to be analysed for us to come to a conclusion regarding this.
From this however it doesn't follow that working class African Americans are entitled to the ends of other working class Americans Labour.
You're not for reparations?
@@voxomnes9537 not at the expense of the rest of the proletariat(particularly without their dictat),not for African American members of the bourgeoisie and certainly not under a bourgeoise dictatorship, whereby a considerable sum of the money will make its way back into the hands of the bourgeoisie.
I believe in reparations for all exploitation of all peoples. with the immediate expropriation and liquidation or redistribution of all items and properties clearly a product of contemporary and historical parasitism. I would prefer special measures for those disproportionately affected (regardless of race but with the understanding this would necessarily imply AAP's along with others) but this is up to the polity and democracy.
@@cazzac4817 then let every group file their grievances and cases for compensation on an individual basis. The natives do and are at this moment receiving their redresses...However the descendants of slaves are and have not. All other groups of so-called marginalized people came here willingly, and it's not your money that would be paid.....the money is from the gov. If you immigrated here, to bad you accept all that comes with wanting to live here in this land, including it's debts.
@@dblack8956 1. catergorising people by race is reactionary. racial essentialism is bourgeois nonsense based of pseudo scientific conjecture and maintained through an unsubstantiated faith alone. its why land back( if meaning proprietorship exclusive to native american tribes) is crypto ethno fascistic nonsense.private property beyond personal property is an irrational notion created from historical domination and a chance advantage that isn't sustainable. the only meaningful distinction between people in regards to sociality is those who produce existence and those who do not.
if the grounds for redistribution are racial and race instantiates an economic body essentially and not just formally then you end up with a situation where races become the privated entities through which exchange occurs this is literally the definition ethno fascism and the grounds which by the theory of race war is derived.
2.money does not come from the gov. this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics . money is crystallized and commodified value , it is the object of universal value. value is socially relative human labour .
if the gov just print the money without there being the capacity for labour, the value of money falls by how much is printed , if the money is simply usurped for reparatory purposes well then the money is going from it's old use to the recipients, this would be fine but it means again it is coming from those who labour( in taxes)and as it is not being exchanged for anything, it's just parasitism or theft. you might want to say that, well the rich can pay for it but the rich themselves get their money from those who labour (because thats what money is)through exploitation .
there is also the issue in regards to the active character of labour. once a labour is done it doesn't last forever it begins to perish immediately and requires new labour as maintenance how much of the value exploited has perished or been destroyed at a certain point, even long lasting value like buildings, the work done in maintenance eventually overcomes the initial investment I hope you begin to see the problem that money (and the value it represents)can not come from nothing, there are no freebies here. the best you can hope for with out becoming the slave master of your fellow proletariat is a communist society where the labour you put in is the value you receive, with the hope that the polity will be kind to those in disfavourable positions as to garner the ability to exchange with their actualised labour power.
This is propaganda probably why the channels struggling
I know these videos take a lot of work, but these ideas could be presented a lot better. There's still so much we don't know about slavery and these arguments come off the wrong way a lot of the time, especially considering how much American political/historical education already tries to downplay or erase the importance of enslaved peoples. Even though I comprehend the cases being made in this video, like I said, there's still so much about slavery that has yet to be/may never be uncovered, including it's economic impact.
TLDR edition. 5 percent doesn't equal a foundational driver of America or capitalism.... Sorry 1619 folks
This is debating something that's not in dispute. The people who instituted black chattel slavery in the colonies said what it was and said why they were doing it. The local legislatures also stated what is was and why it was so. And the founders of this country said it was necessary and they would do it again.
more videos
The answer to this question is almost too obvious
Lol wtf. You’ve earned this unsub.
Im sorry but this seems ...myopic.
Long overdue dose of parasocialtonin
Unsub!!
Ok now we just have to get these as headlines on all the left media
Is jacobin done on RUclips what gives no uploads in three months Wtf