What’s funny and sad was that slavery at that point, with the influx of so many immigrants and cheap labor is that it was no longer even financially viable.
The immigrants worked 6 days a week for “slave” wages and were forced to buy their food and often lodging from the owners of the factories , mines, farms, etc. Etc and you didn’t have to purchase them or wait for them to grow up or feed them if they didn’t get sick.
Someone wrote a book on this subject but it was immediately squashed, although not because it was untrue.
slavery was awful, horrible, disgusting and still is today but at that point it wasn’t necessary anymore , even if SOME in the South didn’t know it yet.
“”””””
Was slavery actually cheaper than paid labor would have been in the United States?
One of the ironies about the end of slavery is the adaptable slave masters in the South discovered their previous system was grossly inefficient and expensive. They were paying for slaves who did forced labor, with the slaves and perceived capabilities setting the pace. Expensive slaves were assets and they had to work them at a level without doing damage, they had to feed them, they had to care for them, and they had to allow for a family type structure as an incentive and as something to threaten for control, and that was for field hands. For Household slaves, they also required expensive clothing to keep up appearances. The Southern system was very different from say the majority of labor slaves of the Roman empire. The Roman empire provided a glut of slaves who could be used up, they could be fed nominal food and worked hard enough that the malnutrition and work related injuries are obvious to forensic archaeologists of today. In the South, taking care of older, injured and low contribution slaves usually took place because if they were simply left to starve, it’d be a disincentive for the healthier ones to contribute.
The former Southern Slave masters developed a system reliant upon low wages and share cropping.
So, now they could pay for just enough to get workers to work. If they could get healthy men willing to work for just enough to get full bellies and to have a few drinks and get laid on Saturday night, that was cheaper than paying to keep an expensive field hand healthy, one that they formerly had the expense of raising for years before productive work or buying and trying to make up the costs, AND feed. The former masters no longer had to provide for the old and infirmed to survive.
With share cropping they could hire whites and blacks who worked their land and took much of the risk and had to provide the labor. People generally work harder when they’re believing they’re working for themselves. A fortunate, hard working share cropper might do well, and they won out. An unfortunate one, even if it was a matter of insects, or bad weather, still owed and some debt was incurred, so much of the risk went from the land owner to the share cropper.
So, ironically, both the former slave owners, and new carpet baggers paid less in overall labor costs than was necessary during the days of slavery.
This is without even getting to the incentives of states and towns to set up jails for using transient and vagrant labor.
For those limited in terms: Yes, by moving to low wages for both skilled and unskilled labor, the former slave masters were able to drop the legacy costs of long-term slavery.
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One of the about the end of slavery is the adaptable slave masters in the South discovered their previous system was grossly inefficient and expensive. They were paying for slaves who did forced labor, with the slaves and perceived capabilities setting the pace. Expensive slaves were assets and they had to work them at a level without doing damage, they had to feed them, they had to care for them, and they had to allow for a family type structure as an incentive and as something to threaten for control, and that was for field hands. For Household slaves, they also required expensive clothing to keep up appearances. The Southern system was very different from say the majority of labor slaves of the Roman empire. The Roman empire provided a glut of slaves who could be used up, they could be fed nominal food and worked hard enough that the malnutrition and work related injuries are obvious to forensic archaeologists of today. In the South, taking care of older, injured and low contribution slaves usually took place because if they were simply left to starve, it’d be a disincentive for the healthier ones to contribute.
The former Southern Slave masters developed a system reliant upon low wages and share cropping.
So, now they could pay for just enough to get workers to work. If they could get healthy men willing to work for just enough to get full bellies and to have a few drinks and get laid on Saturday night, that was cheaper than paying to keep an expensive field hand healthy, one that they formerly had the expense of raising for years before productive work or buying and trying to make up the costs, AND feed. The former masters no longer had to provide for the old and infirmed to survive.
With share cropping they could hire whites and blacks who worked their land and took much of the risk and had to provide the labor. People generally work harder when they’re believing they’re working for themselves. A fortunate, hard working share cropper might do well, and they won out. An unfortunate one, even if it was a matter of insects, or bad weather, still owed and some debt was incurred, so much of the risk went from the land owner to the share cropper.
So, ironically, both the former slave owners, and new carpet baggers paid less in overall labor costs than was necessary during the days of slavery.
This is without even getting to the incentives of states and towns to set up jails for using transient and vagrant labor.
For those limited in terms: Yes, by moving to low wages for both skilled and unskilled labor, the former slave masters were able to drop the legacy costs of long-term
Karl Burkhalter, BA History & Religion, LSU Shreveport (2003)
Answered September 16, 2020 · Author has 2.8K answers and 943.1K answer views
No. Contract “Company Store” Labor was cheaper.
SLAVERY AND ABOLITIONISM, AS VIEWED BY A GEORGIA SLAVE, by Harrison Berry, a Georgia slave. In this first quote, he points out the hypocrisy of Northern antislavery:
“It is estimated, that in the city of New York, alone, about twelve vessels are fitted out every year, for the Slave Trade; and that Boston and Baltimore furnish, each, about the same number, making a fleet of thirty-six vessels. If to these be added the Slavers fitted out in other Eastern ports, besides Boston, we
If one inherited or had in the past as a result of some infusion of money managed to buy a large operation, be it plantation or factory, that came with slaves attached to it, there was some economic benefit in maintaining that system in one’s personal business. A slave was an expensive proposition to buy, but once owned, a slave family could produce children, who themselves would also be slaves, and who w
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H. Alan Raymond, PhD Cybernetics & Management, Brunel University London
Answered 2 years ago · Author has 192 answers and 40.3K answer views
Slavery, as practiced in the US South was very problematic solution for those seeking to a feudal life style. As the owners could not get enough indentured servants, white, to fill in as serfs, and the white “slaves” indentured servants did not fare well in the climate and surroundings, they opted to bring in black slaves. by the fact that they had been captured by rival tribes and sold into the unknown and treated roughly, made them difficult to manage, especially since they did not speak English, and had to taught and forced into a work context. This required a large investment up front.
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Jane Leavell, Bachelor's Secondary English Education & Library Science, Bowling Green State University (1900)
Slavery was cheaper than paid labor in the US, as it was in other countries. Slaves, like horses, had to be bought, but then could be bred to produce many workers who did not need to be paid. Free laborers could demand higher wages, and walk away if they did not receive them. They could not be overworked or forced to work in bad weather or bad working conditions; again, they could walk away.
Robert Mucci, n/a Anthropology & Slavery, Home
When the slave masters visited the cotton mills in England and saw the conditions that prevailed there,they said that they would never never treat their slaves as badly as theBritish workers were.For one the British worker had no value on there heads and could be disposed of or killed off, and at no cost they could easily be replaced !
All some British workers earned in a day was enough to buy a large loaf of bread, ( I earned my crust today an old saying ) to keep alive he had to have is wife and children working as well ( kids then had to work 10hour shifts per day ).
Greg Brecht, Writer, Floridian, Liberal,
Answered 2 years ago · Author has 4.6K answers and 1.7M answer views
I’m not sure this is really answerable.
Slaves were property, sometimes treated like livestock and sometimes treated like family—and of course many were family.
Slaves had more than economic value in the South. They signified a high social status, which money could not buy. In a racially stratified social structure, the existence of black slaves made even the poorest and most uneducated white person feel superior.
There were a couple of advantages slaves had over free labor. In theory your workers can all up and leave you if another employer offers higher wages. In 1860, free workers had other op
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Susan Canaday
No. Slavery was an incredibly costly system. And a very inflexible system. It was not responsive to economic change. It was very costly to maintain.
Think about it. People had to be purchased and smuggled out of a country far away and travel by boat to that country. People were sold for high prices. The owner was responsible for their housing and feeding. While many slaves were treated badly and given no medical care, the owner was responsible for paying to replace them if they died. And there was the very high cost of supervising them every moment, and chasing after them if they ran away.
Martin Harris, former Forward Observer to Battery Commander at 49th Field Artillery Battalion, Charlie Battery (1955-1957)
Recent “cliometrics” (economic history) have made the persuasive (statistics- and logic-based) argument that, as slave values , and the various costs of their non-working years, rose faster than their understandably low, un-mechanized, productivity could justify, the answer was verging on “no” in the ante-bellum years . To that basic argument they add the “externalized cost” factor, the financial extent to which slavery’s existence was dependent on tax-payer-supported escapee prevention, detection, and related-expense investment, primarily by the majority of taxpayers, the small- or no-slaves.
Clay Reynolds, studied History & Literature at The University of Texas at Austin (1971)
Answered 2 years ago · Author has 1K answers and 3.7M answer views
As a general rule, most southerners did not own slaves. Most historians settle on the figure of about 500,000 individuals out of about 15,000,000 citizens in slave-holding states owned slaves.
If one inherited or had in the past as a result of some infusion of money managed to buy a large operation, be it plantation or factory, that came with slaves attached to it, there was some economic benefit in maintaining that system in one’s personal business. A slave was an expensive proposition to buy, but once owned, a slave family could produce children.
Paul Reinke, Career in National Security as Analyst & Executive
Answered 2 years ago · Author has 2K answers and 1.1M answer views
If anyone is interested in an Econometric analysis of the utility of Slavery in the United States, I would urge them to read “Time on the Cross” by Fogel and Engerman.
Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Slavery: Robert William Fogel, Stanley L. Engerman: 9780393312188: Amazon.com: Books
Coming to a conclusion based on facts, data, and statistics is always preferable to simply making stuff up.
The short answer? No. Slavery, and the type of economy it supported was dying out well before the Civil War came to pass.
Michael Troy, History Podcaster - AmRevPodcast.com
Truly free labor might be more expensive. But there were ways to make labor probably about as cheap as slavery, possibly cheaper. In the post Civil War era, Southern States created peonage laws using sharecropping.
Essentially, black farmer would be paid to farm the land and would be lent money over the year to pay for food and other items needed to farm the land. When he sold his crop, the land owner would take repayment of the loan.
This was done in such a way that the sharecroppers remained in a continual state of debt and could never leave. The land owner got his crops grown and harvested fo
H. Alan Raymond, PhD Cybernetics & Management, Brunel University London
Slavery, as practiced in the US South was very problematic solution for those seeking to a feudal life style. As the owners could not get enough indentured servants, white, to fill in as serfs, and the white “slaves” indentured servants did not fare well in the climate and surroundings, they opted to bring in black slaves. by the fact that they had been captured by rival tribes and sold into the unknown and treated roughly, made them difficult to manage, especially since they did not speak English, and had to taught and forced into a work context. This required a large investment up front.
Jane Leavell, Bachelor's Secondary English Education & Library Science, Bowling Green State University (1900)
Slavery was cheaper than paid labor in the US, as it was in other countries. Slaves, like horses, had to be bought, but then could be bred to produce many workers who did not need to be paid. Free laborers could demand higher wages, and walk away if they did not receive them. They could not be overworked or forced to work in bad weather or bad working conditions; again, they could walk away, unli
Miguel Corazao, MS from University of California, Berkeley (1994)
E. G. Moye, studied Political Science at Duquesne University (1979
Chattel slavery was the most remunerative way to get labor ever devised. It was dangerous and violent forcing people to work for nothing for their entire lives, so it was exploited vigorously. Slaveowners leveraged slaves' financial face value every way possible. Some of the ways slaves were used:
As collateral for huge loans used to buy land and supplies to run the business of plantation farming.
Robert Mucci, n/a Anthropology & Slavery, Home Studies
When the slave masters visited the cotton mills in England and saw the conditions that prevailed there,they said that they would never never treat their slaves as badly as theBritish workers were.For one the British worker had no value on there heads and could be disposed of or killed off, and at no cost they could easily be replaced !
All some British workers earned in a day was enough to buy a large loaf of bread, ( I earned my crust today an old saying ) to keep alive he had to have is wife and children working as well ( kids then had to work 10hour shifts per day ).
Greg Brecht, Writer, Floridian, Liberal,
Slaves were property, sometimes treated like livestock and sometimes treated like family—and of course many were family.
Slaves had more than economic value in the South. They signified a high social status, which money could not buy. In a racially stratified social structure, the existence of black slaves made even the poorest and most uneducated white person feel superior.
There were a couple of advantages slaves had over free labor. In theory your workers can all up and leave you if another employer offers higher wages. In 1860, free workers had other op
Susan Canaday
No. Slavery was an incredibly costly system. And a very inflexible system. It was not responsive to economic change. It was very costly to maintain.
Think about it. People had to be purchased and smuggled out of a country far away and travel by boat to that country. People were sold for high prices. The owner was responsible for their housing and feeding. While many slaves were treated badly and given no medical care, the owner was responsible for paying to replace them if they died. And there was the very high cost of supervising them every moment, and chasing after them if they ran away.
Martin Harris, former Forward Observer to Battery Commander at 49th Field Artillery Battalion, Charlie Battery (1955-1957)
Recent “cliometrics” (economic history) have made the persuasive (statistics- and logic-based) argument that, as slave values , and the various costs of their non-working years, rose faster than their understandably low, un-mechanized, productivity could justify, the answer was verging on “no” in the ante-bellum years . To that basic argument they add the “externalized cost” factor, the financial extent to which slavery’s existence was dependent on tax-payer-supported escapee prevention, detection, and related-expense investment. “””””””””””””
