pynchon-l-digest V2 #2833

[Three Times One Minus One]

Northern capitalism greatly benefitted from slavery. The hotbed of northern 
opposition to the civil war was in New York city (even Ken Burns managed to 
discuss this rather embarassing part of New York history). This was due 
primarily to the shipping interests there, the companies who profited the 
most from shipping southern cotton to Europe, and northern manufacturers who 
depended on the south as a cheap source of raw materials. Also, remember 
that northern capital financed much of the transportation networks in the 
south (e.g. the canals and rail links that helped bring southern 
agricultural products to the north; the same transportation links that were 
front and center in the fight against Jim Crow laws). I think from a moral 
point of view many Americans would like to believe that the north and the 
south were two different worlds. While this is kind of true, I can't stress 
enough how interdependent their economies really were. However, whether the 
south was capitalist or not is an entirely different question. It depends on 
whether your criteria for a capitalist economy includes only the type of 
labor being used--in which case the south isn't capitalist--before or after 
the civil war, due to the prevalence of sharecropping, a feudal system of 
labor--or whether you point to the rather obvious fact that the southern 
elite were using other people's labor to accumulate capital--in which case 
the south most certainly is capitalist.

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Kenny
To: mikenny79 at hotmail.com ; ottosell at yahoo.de ; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: Any Rand


I'm sorry--I didn't make a relevant point in my response below to Northern
slavery.  My only response is: how did racism serve Northern capitalism?
I'm unclear on that.
- --Mike Kenny

me.
>>As we all know today that it's a myth that this had been done for moral
>>reasons.  The absence of slavery in the Northern states did not mean the
>>absence of racism. Racism served very well in capitalism to have large
>>numbers of low-paid workers at its disposal.

Mike:
>Capitalism can't operate with slave labor since it relies on free people
making contracts with >each other of their own free will.  Ayn Rand is clear
on this and so slavery and capitalism >can't exist together.  If there is
slavery in a system, it isn't capitalism.



_________________________________________________________________
Choose an Internet access plan right for you -- try MSN! 
http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp