Re: [OPE] Further evidence RE: Marx, slavery and the South

PZ,

Sorry about the broken sentence. You don't respond to the point about wage
slavery as an inevitable replacement for absolute slavery.

The idea of a revision of 'historical materialism' seems strange to me, Marx
UNDOUBTEDLY responded to changes in real life. Thus his views of the role of
Ireland in the British class struggle changed with circumstances and he drew
quite different conclusions on this as the years went by. So What? The
point is: was he characterising the particular period he was examining
correctly?

If a slave costs say $50,000 in modern terms ( at the $2000 1860 price) then
whether or not it then cost $19 a year thereafter misses the point. One
cannot allow the property to die or be injured in any way for a couple of
years, whereas you can sack a 'free' worker on the spot.

This seems to me the ever present view of Marx. The contemporary analysis,
on this basis, can involve something further.

PB

-----Original Message-----
From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu]
On Behalf Of Paul Zarembka
Sent: 18 February 2011 15:53
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: Re: [OPE] Further evidence RE: Marx, slavery and the South

Paul B.,

Some of your sentences are broken off, making responding more difficult.
  A slave cost $1400-2000 in 1860. However, W.E.B. Dubois in 'Black
Reconstruction', p. 9, says that the maintenance of slave costs only
about $19 year and thus was a real 'bargain' on a current cost basis,
but I don't know HOW that calculation was made. [I don't know fully
comprehend what Paul B.'s numbers refer to when he writes "a child can
be bought from Haiti for $50-70 today".]

Anyway, I think the problem for us is that Marx offered a materialist
explanation for the need for slavery to expand, implying southern
aggression against the North and the U.S. Civil War. If Marx's
explanation is off the mark, perhaps way off the mark, what are we
learning about Marx and his conception of materialism?

This is important because we are discussing an historical event in
Marx's time, analyzed by Marx as it is happening (albeit before he had
finished the first volume of 'Capital').

One can claim that Marx's moral aversion to slavery got in the way of
intellectual prowess. Or one can claim that his materialism has a
substantial weakness (and/or may still reflect that 'Poverty' comment
that the windmill gives us feudalism).

In other words, how do we reconcile historical materialism with Marx's
own analysis of the U.S. Civil War? His articles such as "The North
American Civil War" October 1861 were seriously enough written that we
ought not claim that he was simply being polemical.

All of this may have something to do with Marx's later revisions of his
historical materialism as he analyzed Russia after 1870.

Paul Z.

On 2/18/2011 5:49 AM, paul bullock wrote:
> PZ asked me what was the main argument/point i assumed in my last note:
>
> It is that slaves were both more expensive and less flexible than wage
> labour
>
> (Nb. Modern research shows the equivalent current cost of a slave is
> about $40,000+ whilst a child can be bought from Haiti for $50-70 today.
> Ref supplied)
>
> All the rest becomes secondary. Slaves were use because 'free labour'
> simply wasn't available, Mr Weston's problem.
>
> Once it was, once a real proletariat (poor white and emancipated blacks).
>
> The rest of the debate has to be seen in this context.
>
> PB.
>
> *From:*ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu
> [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] *On Behalf Of *Paul Zarembka
> *Sent:* 18 February 2011 02:49
> *To:* Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> *Subject:* [OPE] Further evidence RE: Marx, slavery and the South
>
> Further evidence of a problem with Marx's argument is the following:
>
> "Capitalism advanced in the South [after 1865], both in industry and
> agriculture, but without any special technological feature.... It was,
> however, the cotton-textile industry that became the principal
> industrial engine of capitalist growth. By the 1890s, New England
> textile mills began to close shop and move to the South. The magnet for
> such movement was the availability of a great reservoir of cheap
> labor-the poor whites. The rulers of the post-Civil War South-more or
> less the same ones who had ruled before the war-still controlled cotton
> agriculture. Vital to continuation of that control was command over the
> labor of the emancipated enslaved workers. To have staffed the textile
> mills with these workers would have created a competition between farm
> and cotton mill; wages would surely have risen. Thus, poor whites were
> employed: They were told the new jobs were exclusively designed for
> them; blacks were not permitted to work in the mills." (Meyer Weinberg,
> A Short History of American Capitalism, p. 145; on in the middle of
> Chapter 7: http://www.newhistory.org )
>
> That is, cotton production continued in the South produced by ex-slaves.
>
> Although I don't know whether deteriorating soil was overcome or what
>
>
www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~20710~550098:Crop-and-per
-capita-production,-189
>
<http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~20710~550098:Crop
-and-per-capita-production,-189>
>
> provides cotton production by state. The total in 1891-92 was 9 million
> bales (2.3 million in Texas, the largest) compared to 5 million in 1860.
>
> One has to wonder, given this evidence, at Marx's (materialist) argument
> that confining slavery to the South (the platform of the 1860 Republican
> party) would have implied its end due to economic/agronomic reasons.
>
> Paul Z.
>
> P.S. Thanks, Jurrian for the below and your private message.
>
> =====
>
> (V23) HIDDEN HISTORY OF 9-11, Seven Stories Press, 2nd ed. softcover
>
> (V24) TRANSITIONS IN LATIN AMERICA (V25) WHY CAPITALISM SURVIVES CRISES
>
> (V26) THE NATIONAL QUESTION AND THE QUESTION OF CRISIS
>
> ====> Research in Political Economy, Emerald Group, Bingley, UK
>
> ====> P.Zarembka, ed.,www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=0161-7230
<http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?issn=0161-7230>
>
> ====> orwww.buffalo.edu/~zarembka <http://www.buffalo.edu/~zarembka>
>
> .
>
>
> On 2/17/2011 5:57 AM, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
>
> Paul
>
> I just did a quick google with the Texas State Historical Association
> http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/afc03 who mentioned
> this. I assume they didn't just make up the figues.
>
> Marcel van der Linden reviews some arguments about why slavery was used
> in his book Workers of the World (which I edited)
> http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/afc03
>
> Jairus Banaji argues that the difference between wage slavery and
> chattel slavery should not be exaggerated
>
http://humanitiesunderground.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/reconstructing-histori
cal-materialism-ii/
>
> Jurriaan
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:*Paul Zarembka <mailto:zarembka@buffalo.edu>
>
> *To:*Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> <mailto:ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
>
> *Sent:*Thursday, February 17, 2011 4:34 AM
>
> *Subject:*Re: [OPE] Marx's explanation regarding the need for the
> U.S. South to obtain new territory
>
>
> On 2/16/2011 6:13 AM, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
>
> ...
>
> In 1849, a census of the cotton production of Texas reported 58,073
> "bales" (500 pounds each). In 1852, Texas was in eighth place among
> the top ten cotton-producing states of the US. The 1859 census
> credited Texas with a yield of 431,645 bales.
>
>
> Very interesting data -- what is the source, Jurriaan?
>
>
> The total output volume of cotton therefore must have increased by
> more than seven times in one decade, and the amount of land under
> cultivation must have increased proportionally. But how much of this
> expansion of production was attributable specifically to slave
> labour is a moot point. Cotton production continued to grow also
> after the abolition of slavery; by the early 20th century Texas was
> the leading cotton producer in the US.
>
>
> That is a related question that Marx states but doesn't really
> explain to my satisfaction. That is, I don't understand the argument
> that slavery itself was required for the crops grown in the South -
> which indeed seems to be what Marx was arguing. He seemed to be
> saying more than that slavery was 'consistent' with the nature of
> agriculture production in the South.
>
> Thanks, Paul
>
>
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Received on Fri Feb 18 13:01:38 2011