The Inefficiency of Slavery

The Inefficiency of Slavery

Slavery

There is no question that slavery was on of, if not the darkest stain on American history. It is not our debate of whether slavery was morally correct. Our argument is that even if the ignorance of the people of America continued, slavery would have been abolished based on the fact that the market was inefficient.

Slavery

Slavery in America lasted from the start of the 1600's until 1865. During that time the number of slaves rose to 3,953,760 in 1860. The trade of Africans influenced the US, Britain and Africa. The slave trade was tremendously prosperous for the countries involved, but still may not have been successful in obtaining efficiency.

How to Judge Efficiency

We will look at one of the most controversial books. Time on the Cross by Fogel and Engerman. Fogel and Engerman attempted to use cleometrics to prove that slavery was an efficient market. To show that slavery was in fact not efficient, it is vital to see the flaws in their study.[1]

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Answering Fogel and Engerman

The best way to answer this question of efficiency is to look at Fogel and Engerman's data and evaluate. The book starts by listing ten assumptions that Fogel and Engerman observe before further evaluating the system and showing its efficiency. The best way to prove that slavery was in fact an inefficient market because the assumptions of Fogel and Engerman are weakly based and in some cases rather short-sighted.

The 10 Assumptions

1. Slavery was in the best interest of the slave owners.

• It is difficult to know this because the slave owners were not too keen on getting rid of the slaves and experimenting with other forms of the agriculture market.

2. No evidence that economic forces would have stopped slavery.

• Pure economic forces didn't have to because the social cost of keeping slaves was increasing as more and more people opposed the system. Politically and morally slavery could not have continued. Lincoln said that the country would have to be unified. He also said that if he could do this without freeing slaves he would, but that was impossible.

3. Slave holders were not pessimistic before the Civil War.

• This just proves the point that these slave holders did not understand economics. Before the Civil War started the North had a considerable advantage economically. This alone should have scared them.

4. Slave plantations produced 35% more than Northern one.

• Fogel and Engerman do not take into account for climate and the longer growing season of the southern plantations. It is also possible that because the South was primarily based on agriculture, they may have learned to do some aspects of the production more efficiently, other than using slaves.

5. Slaves were not lazy, but in fact harder workers than white, especially immigrants.

• This is just racism. To say that these workers were harder, based on race is just as racist to say that groups of people are lazy and worthless. For slaves to be motivated, many plantations had "motivators." These were men with whips that stood in the fields, not contributing to the production, but just to motivate. This too is a loss of efficiency.

6. Demand for slaves was going up in cities rather than decreasing.

• This is just a self perpetuating system. Slaves were seen as harder workers and immigrants were seen as lazy. These racist views led to the growth of slave labor in cities rather than immigrants. This speaks nothing to the efficiency of it, but rather the short-sighted nature of the society.

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7. Black families were not split up.

• This is absurd. When married slaves said their vows, they said, "Till death or distance do us part." It is contradictory to say that slave families were kept together and plantation owners operated as efficiently as possible.

8. Working conditions for slaves were equal to hired workers.

• WHAT!?!? This is just ridiculous. Hired workers were free, paid, and were not whipped while they worked.

9. Slaves Recieved 90% of income he/she produced.

• This is good, but slaves did not choose how to use that income. If they did, they would buy themselves and set themselves free. Without a choice, they could not be effective actors in the market.

10. Per capita income of the South really increased.

• This is true. This is not necessarily true because of slavery. The South was still not surpassing the North. Also it is unclear what effect advances in technology played in this. Advances would by themselves increase per capita incomes.

Other Criticisms of Fogel and Engerman

• Biggest Critic was Herbert Gutman

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Herbert Gutman was a professor who's main focus was the history of workers and slaves in the United States. After reading Time on the Cross Gutman retaliated with a book of his own called Slavery and the Numbers Game. His arguments against Fogel and Engerman were so compelling that the Time on the Cross became seen as having incorrect information and basically faded away. Herbert Gutmans Arguments on Fogel and Engerman's Time on the Cross

1. Used evidence from only one Plantation

2. Pointed out that the math used in the book was careless

3. Used wrong measurements to interpret data

4. Lacked sufficient evidence to back up the reward system

5. Didn't use best available data

6. Believed slaves adapted Protestant work ethic

This was a pointless study because slavery was done because of social problems. Regardless of its efficiency, it was socially and ethically immoral.

Response of the People

Although to some the piece brought up some interesting ideas, for the most part it was met with a tremendous amount of criticism. There was an outpouring of "research, papers, special journal issues, edited volumes, monographs, and conference sessions". In fact, the Rochester Conference entitled "Time on the Cross: A First Appraisal", was held to specifically address the concepts in the book. Although not everyone agreed on which part of the book they found most shocking and erroneous, the wide majority of scholars heavily criticized the work.

One specific part of the book that critics attacked was the quantitative calculations that the authors used. Many questioned whether or not their calculations were accurate or even possible to quantify. For example, Fogel and Engerman stated that there were only "an average of 0.7 whippings per hand per year", meaning that whipping was rather an uncommon event. Many people questioned the methodology of this statistic and it's accuracy. In fact, Gutman argued that slaves were whipped on average of 4.65 times per day. Contrary to Fogel and Engerman, he believed that whipping occurred quite often and was the driving force behind a slaves' will to work.

Overall, the book sparked a great amount of debate, with most scholars disagreeing with Fogel and Engerman's assertions.

Cleometrics

Cleometrics is the historical method which involves forming historical explanations based on highly detailed records and data. Its' roots can be found in Marxist methodology. Cleometrics takes standard historical statistics such as "tax records, census records, baptismal records, and agricultural records" and combines them with historical events in order to draw some sort of quantitative analysis.

Fogel and Engerman used cleomterics in the research of their book, but they were using it in the wrong century. By this time, most people had begun to question statistical evidence and society had a strong opinion against slavery. The controversy of this book was compounded because of the recent advances in the civil rights movement of the previous decades.

The Efficiency

Obviously less efficient than regular capitalism. Without the outlandish assumptions that Fogel and Engerman laid out they would have been unable to prove the market efficient. This was just an attempt to make a morally unjust system seem plausible. The lesson to be taken from writers like Fogel and Engerman is to understand what reality really told us. It is also important to be aware of cleometics and to be self-reliant and interpret information for ourselves before coming to the same short-sighted and grotesque views of some writers.

Sources

• Time on the Cross
• Critic's articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Gutman

http://eh.net/bookreviews/library/weiss