A CSA in the Second Imperialism Era:

I don't see slavery being abolished in the CSA, just contained to certain industries; mostly agriculture--though only certain crops--manual labor, and service. Poor whites are going to raise hell if the planters try to expand "nigger work" into the industrial and/or commercial sectors.

White workers at the Tredegar Iron Company went on strike for this very reason in 1847. The strike failed and Tredegar replaced the strikers with even more slave workers.

Here's an example; let's say that there are two steelworks outside of Birmingham, one manned by whites, the other manned by slaves being rented to the owner. We could very well see white unions try to exert pressure on the slave-drivers to toss out the blacks so the industry isn't "spoiled" and that factory work stays "respectable" by keeping it whites-only.

That's far more likely to get the owner of the "white" steel mill to fire his workers and replace them with slaves who can't form unions or go on strike.

Good points, but I have heard the case of ending CSA slavery argued many times and some state that it may not end until the 1920s if only for economic reasons b/c it was during that time that mass produced farm equitment was capable of replacing manual labor in OTL.

Mechanical cotton pickers only became capable of replacing manual labor in the 1950s, not the 1920s. And as Wolfpaw points out, slaves were also a status symbol.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Stalin's USSR showed that slavery can survive industrialization. Many of the gulags were nothing more than slave labor camps.
That's a very different kind of labor, though. The Gulags were overwhelmingly about resource extraction, not production.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
White workers at the Tredegar Iron Company went on strike for this very reason in 1847. The strike failed and Tredegar replaced the strikers with even more slave workers.

That's far more likely to get the owner of the "white" steel mill to fire his workers and replace them with slaves who can't form unions or go on strike.
Then this just shows what a shitty time the CSA will have if it tries to industrialize. We'll probably see something akin to the KKK arise, if for no other reason than to become a vehicle of class warfare. If blacks are off limits (because the planters won't stand to have their property harmed), we'll probably see foremen and managers intimidated by cowled hoodlums in the dead of night.

IIRC, there is some TL around here that has a "communist KKK," which actually seems more likely than not in an independent CSA. I would argue, however, that its ideology would far more resemble national socialism than anything remotely internationalist.
 
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That's a very different kind of labor, though. The Gulags were overwhelmingly about resource extraction, not production.

So? Put in the mines and forests. There is plenty of coal and ore to mine and plenty of trees to chop down south. The CSA comprised a very large area, there would be plenty of grunt work for them to do.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
So? Put in the mines and forests. There is plenty of coal and ore to mine and plenty of trees to chop down south. The CSA comprised a very large area, there would be plenty of grunt work for them to do.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I agree. All I'm saying is that poor whites are probably going to push for the factory jobs to be whites-only while slaves take care of the resource extraction part.

Mining, though, may be risky. Slaves are more expensive to lose and harder to replace in a collapse or explosion rather than dime-a-dozen poor crackers.
 
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I agree. All I'm saying is that poor whites are probably going to push for the factory jobs to be whites-only while slaves take care of the resource extraction part.

Mining, though, may be risky. Slaves are more expensive to lose and harder to replace in a collapse or explosion rather than dime-a-dozen poor crackers.

Put them onto loading docks , warehouses and train stations doing all the loading and unloading of ships and trains before forklifts come into being. I don't see the CSA lasting much later than the 1930s or so anyways so that shouldn't be a problem.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Put them onto loading docks , warehouses and train stations doing all the loading and unloading of ships and trains before forklifts come into being. I don't see the CSA lasting much later than the 1930s or so anyways so that shouldn't be a problem.
We are on the same wavelength, my brother.
 
Put them onto loading docks , warehouses and train stations doing all the loading and unloading of ships and trains before forklifts come into being. I don't see the CSA lasting much later than the 1930s or so anyways so that shouldn't be a problem.

I can't believe things in the CSA will EVER be rosy (unless you're fantastically wealthy, and white), but once your state has existed for 60+ years, it'll limp along for some time to come. It'll likely be a weaker, poorer version of itself, but it'll exist in some form.
 
I can't believe things in the CSA will EVER be rosy (unless you're fantastically wealthy, and white), but once your state has existed for 60+ years, it'll limp along for some time to come. It'll likely be a weaker, poorer version of itself, but it'll exist in some form.

Well, that is very much a best case scenario for it. It probably wouldn't last past 1900 or so.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
What might that be like?
More comparable to a reunion of North and South Korea, only on a much larger scale. At least EG was a 2nd world country; the CSA is going to be straight-up 3rd world.

You have an industrialized region with a larger population taking on the responsibility of governing a humanitarian and economic basket case the size of western Europe.

It is going to suck.
 
More comparable to a reunion of North and South Korea, only on a much larger scale. At least EG was a 2nd world country; the CSA is going to be straight-up 3rd world.

You have an industrialized region with a larger population taking on the responsibility of governing a humanitarian and economic basket case the size of western Europe.

It is going to suck.


Agreed, like NK you might see out and out starvation in the CSA.
 
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