CSA and mixed capitalist economies
- This topic has 15 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I know the Confederate States of America was a capitalist state, with expansionist designs westward, but I also know its principal economy was grounded upon chattel slavery. How does this square with capitalism`s principal ingredients: wage-labour and capital accumulation gleaned from it. Can you help me define the CSA for non-socialists in my arguments? Wage-slavery must have been extremely limited in the CSA, with most poor whites being dirt farmers with some shabby "property" of their own. The capital accumulation depended mostly on the chattel slave labour in the cotton fields, did it not?
We have tended to analyse the slave economy of the Southern States as "plantation capitalism", using the word "capitalism" on the grounds that it involved the investment of money in production for sale on a market with a view to profit. There's something on this in chapter 4 of one of our pamphlets on Racism here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/racism
Slightly relevant to this are Marx's speculations on the future of Russia. In 1877 he wrote a response to N.K. Mikhailovsky, the leading theorist of Russian Populism, who had penned a critique of Das Kapital in which he had foisted on Marx a highly schematicised stagist view of history which declared that Russia had to take precisely the same path trodden by Western Europe in the development of capitalism via a brutal process of "primitive accumulation" and land dispossession. Marx argued that this is not what he was suggesting. It was theoretically possible for Russia to skip the stage of capitalist development by building on the traditional communal form of the Russian village although this would necessitate linking up with a "proletarian revolution in the West." He cited the case of the plebeians of ancient Rome who were originally free peasants tilling their own land. Their growing indebtedness and the expropriation of their land by large landowners however did not result in the Roman proletariat being turned into wage workers , as happened in Western Europe, but rather into an "indolent mob, more abject than the former “poor whites” in the southern lands of the United States; and by their side was unfolded not a capitalist but a slave mode of production". Hence concluded Marx:strikingly analogical events, occurring, however, in different historical environments, led to entirely dissimilar results.By studying each of these evolutions separately, and then comparing them, one will easily find the key to these phenomena, but one will never succeed with the master-key of a historico-philosophical theory whose supreme virtue consists in being supra-historical. (https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol01/no04/marx.htmSome Marxologists have argued that this demonstrates fairly conclusively that Marx did not subscribe to unilinear model of social evolution but a multilinear model in which historical contingencies played a large part
Probably irrelevant but i wrote about the American Civil War herehttp://www.countercurrents.org/johnstone060415.htmMore a snap-shot of Marx view rather than a definitive one.
Thanks everyone. Robbo, do you think this might validate for us Makhno`s experiment in the Ukraine, and other anarchist models?
For discussion? Karl in volume III described slavery being operated with a ‘capitalist outlook’. In volume one he briefly reviewed the southern states slave economy in capitalistic terms. Thus the southern slave owners themselves economically analysed their slaves as their ‘fixed capital’ as well as viewing them as like consumable capital and being used up in the production process; as with Karl’s spindles; in the non slave economy. The slave owning economists did actually discuss, in exquisite detail, the most profitable way, in capitalistic terms we would recognise, of exploiting their slaves; and whether for example it was cheaper, and more profitable, to work them to a general early death and just purchase new ones, or not, and where the optimum was. Seven years was considered the optimum for southern cotton pickers at one stage. There may have been ‘good’ economic reasons for the introduction of slavery in the first place; which sort of is also briefly discussed or suggested elsewhere in volume one. Although it is I think complicated by the fact that early on the price of stuff like at first sugar and tobacco from the America’s etc was highly distorted or very high with an associated high rate of profit. [The reasons for that can be analysed in Marxist terms; are perhaps less important than the consequences.] Going back to before the general introduction of imported African slavery; big capitalist entrepreneurs and investors were attracted by the massive amounts of money small colonist farmers were making, tried to get a piece of the action by, and for a very short time, shipping over and recruiting 'bone fide wage slaves'. These however would quickly go AWOL and set up on their own in ‘artisan peasant’ competition; because as far as this kind of production was concerned, the means of production was special land and location, and there was difficulty in maintaining monopoly ownership of it. Wage slaves are held captive due to being dispossessed of the means of production. There was I think a seminal 18thcentury essay by Lord Wakefield on this issue? The solution was quickly obvious; investing in captive labourers who couldn’t run away and set up on their own; and also economically drive these bastard simple commodity producing Proudhonists to the wall to wit. Looking next at the ‘Little House On The Prairie’ and Lincoln type people etc. Initially the big capitalists were not that interested in the less than spectacular profits that could be made in say other agricultural production in North America and even Australia. And were quite happy to let the emigrating artisan peasantry get on with it whilst creaming off any benefits in the form of merchant capitalism and the associated geo-economic benefits of politically dependent colonial planters etc. American Independence briefly changed that I suppose. The reasons for the American civil war are complicated, multiple and diverse. However one issue which might be overlooked specifically, when it comes to Abraham Lincoln’s background, was the increasing interest of the slave owning capitalists in the kind of agricultural production of the North which they had previously left alone for the richer pickings to be had South. As the Northern States moved Westwards, before the civil war, the slave owning capitalists wanted that land opened up for slave production. That was just as an appealing idea to the crypto ‘artisan contracting computer programmers’ as to learning of their work being outsourced to more captive wage slaves in India. Slaves being now use to pick apples and sow corn! There was also from the southern states the objection of a creeping Northern protectionist tariff system on general industrial products from Europe etc eg anything from spades to furniture. As that was not much the game of the southern capitalists being more consumers of such things rather producers; and they took the Adam Smith view on things. There has always been a general informed view that Lincolndidn’t give a shit about slaves of an African origin and there has been a recent book on that which makes that more than clear.
Banks used to give loans to slaves owners because slaves were considered as a commodity and they were considered as collateral for the loans , and they were profitable, they were like a negotiable instrument which could be endorsed to others slave owners, or to a bank . Slavery in the South of the USA was a capitalist investment with the sole purpose of producing profits
I believe a useful book on this subject is Eric Williams' (one of the leaders of Grenada the US deposed) 'Capitalism and slavery' he makes an interesting point that slavery was in part because there were no or few people in the newly colonised spaces, so capture and enslavement was the only way to populate and make them productive (for the owners).Of course, slavery was a key component of primary accumulation, literally seizing wealth in the form of humans.This is very useful:https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/When Britain 'abolished' slavery, the owners were compensated, so we have a real snapshot of what the scale of slavery was, and how widespread and valuable it was.So, on a quick look we have this entry:https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/28811And, look their firm is still in business:http://www.johnsmith.co.uk/about-john-smiths
Young Master Smeet wrote:Eric Williams' (one of the leaders of Grenada the US deposed)That can't be (isn't) right. He was from Trinidad (its first Prime Minister) and died in 1981, two years before the US invasion of Grenada.
ALB wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:Eric Williams' (one of the leaders of Grenada the US deposed)That can't be (isn't) right. He was from Trinidad (its first Prime Minister) and died in 1981, two years before the US invasion of Grenada.
The prominent leader of Grenada was Maurice Bishop, and I do not think anyone of its movement had a clear economical conception about slavery . In the Caribbean, probably CLR James was one of the few prominent writers who had a better conception on black slavery and Franz Fannon was more dedicated to the pyschological aspect of slavery
You're right, I must have been confusing him with someone else.Anyway, his book is available here:https://archive.org/details/capitalismandsla033027mbp
Re: surplus value. It is clear-cut in the case of direct production of goods, but could you please elaborate on surplus value with regard to non-productive wage-labour, i.e. medicine, the so-called professions, clerical work, service/entertainment, etc? Thanks.
John Oswald wrote:Re: surplus value. It is clear-cut in the case of direct production of goods, but could you please elaborate on surplus value with regard to non-productive wage-labour, i.e. medicine, the so-called professions, clerical work, service/entertainment, etc? Thanks.It is quite a complex subject, John, but essentially, unproductive labour though necessary to the functional efficiency of capitalism, is paid out of surplus value. There is a very good but longish article article on the subject by Ian Gough entitled "Marx's Theory of Productive and Unproductive Labour" which appeared in the New Left Review in 1972. Its a bit of classic http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/51144/1/__Libfile_repository_Content_Gough,%20I_Gough_%20Marx%27s_%20theory_productive_1972_Gough_%20Marx%27s_%20theory_productive_1972.pdf Also worth reading on the subject is Mick Brooks and Fred Moseley. Moseley, if I recall correctly, partly attributes the downturn in economic growth from the 1970s onwards to the growth of the unproductive sector, eating into surplus value and this depressing the rate of capital accumulation…
Re Oswald on non productive production it is a bit of a big subject so I will have to defer for the moment and maybe return to it later. Unless someone else wants to start it off for me?I think slavery as part of capitalist process was an interesting subject that Karl pretty much conspicuously ignored given the fact that it was an important part of the global economy and that he delved into every other subject in depth. Thus I think it is a bit of open season playground for ‘Marxist’ analysis. In the USA slave owners 'would' rent out their slaves to industrial capitalists and there was also the ‘living out’ system were slaves would go out and actively seek paid wage labour and would remunerate their owners. I suppose they were either trustworthy Christians or had family held to ransom. It was part of the plot on Uncle Tom’s cabin I think. If successful and talented they could use their income to purchase their freedom as they did in the Roman Empire? There were similar things going on in Russian Serfdom in the early 1800’s were serf owners would loan out their serfs to industrialist, mostly in mining, timber and even textile production etc, during the periods of the year when they weren’t required for agriculture due to seasonal considerations. Apparently in Russiat here were fairly big textile capitalists in the 1800's who were ‘legally’ serfs or slaves basically. Anyway the 'workers' surplus value was being divided up between the pure industrial capitalists and the owners of the serfs/slaves? Which the industrial capitalist wouldn’t like as they would prefer to have it all for themselves. And then there was the related debt peonage which still operates to a certain extent in India until recently? We have echo’s of that problem with the von Mises type people. They, the 'industrial orientated capitalists' , don’t like the idea of workers indebted to the 'other lot' ie the financial capitalists.although the industrial caoitalists or 'profiteers of entreprise' as Karl called them are pretty much fused together as a class with the finace capitalists; Karl recognised potential tensions between the two. In fact most of the surplus value generated by western workers comes out of their ‘disposable’ income paycheck in the form of servicing debt eg housing/rent ,student loans and visa cards etc. The poor old industrial capitalists get a mere fraction in comparison? Apparently slavery in the US was a fairly low key thing in the 1700’s and most slaves were ‘employed’ on small farms of less than 50 slaves growing tobacco and another lucrative cash crop Indigo?Rice became an important slave produced crop in Carolina about that time but it nay have been merely a food staple for the slave economy itself on that side of the Atlantic?Apparently often on these farms the ‘peasant’ farmer owner, hired non slaves as well as owning slaves who could all be found working the fields alongside each other. Generalisations for then are a hazard of a presumption of uniform systems I think; which goes along with assumptions of the stereotyped versions of slavery as regards worse abuse that you could find in wage slavery in Britain in the 1850’s. As maybe with truck systems and indentured ‘apprentices’ etc eg Oliver Twist? The later Southern Plantation Cotton plantation model was adopted from the previous get rich quick big slave sugar plantations in Caribbean and Brazilwhich always was pretty nasty. You find that, albeit ignoring the nasty, even in the contemporary fiction of circa 1800 eg MansfieldParkby Austen and Robinson Crusoe. I think the general economic situation in 1700’s USis quite fascinating as they had all sorts of intriguing non gold and precious metal based money systems. Which is more relevant to the systems we have now.
Many thanks. A lot to think about here. I didn`t know about the renting out of slaves and serfs.Thanks.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.