Is a chaotic CSA inevitable?

Anaxagoras

Banned
The assumption was that the CSA wasn't paying so the likelihood of getting paid is not in question, it isn't being paid so there is no risk at that end. As far as what they get, raid coastal plantations and seize their cotton and personal belongings and then leave.

That doesn't make any sense. Coastal plantations aren't the property of the Confederate government but of private citizens.
 
That doesn't make any sense. Coastal plantations aren't the property of the Confederate government but of private citizens.
No it makes perfect sense. They are easily accessible concentrations of wealth in a country not paying its debts. Private or public ownership does not enter into it

Their owners are also influential and will be screaming at Confederate Congress to start paying its debts to stop their plantations from suffering the same fate
 

bguy

Donor
I doubt even the British would go to the massive expense and trouble of organizing an army for a transatlantic raid into the heart of Monroe Doctrine territory. The political ramifications with the US alone would prevent that. However, Britain is admirably equipped for, and the CSA decidedly vulnerable to, a RN blockade of CSA trade. With the possible exception of US ships (which, depending on the state of US/CS relations, Washington may not protest about), Britain simply seizes imports and non British flagged/destined exports as collections on unpaid debt.


Most of the CSA's imports are going to either be from the United States (which will not be ok with the British seizing US shipments unless the British pay full market value for the value of the shipments) or from Britain itself. (How long do you think British manufacturers will support a government policy that is effectively keeping them from being able to sell their goods in the Confederate States?)

And the same holds true to the CSA's export trade (most of which are also going to be going to either the United States or Britain.) A UK blockade that seizes Confederate exports is ultimately pretty much just a stealth tax on the British textile industry.

Thus I don't see this option being viable for the UK.
 
No it makes perfect sense. They are easily accessible concentrations of wealth in a country not paying its debts. Private or public ownership does not enter into it

Their owners are also influential and will be screaming at Confederate Congress to start paying its debts to stop their plantations from suffering the same fate

Exactly, the Brits would only care about being paid not about who owned it.
 
I doubt even the British would go to the massive expense and trouble of organizing an army for a transatlantic raid into the heart of Monroe Doctrine territory. The political ramifications with the US alone would prevent that. However, Britain is admirably equipped for, and the CSA decidedly vulnerable to, a RN blockade of CSA trade. With the possible exception of US ships (which, depending on the state of US/CS relations, Washington may not protest about), Britain simply seizes imports and non British flagged/destined exports as collections on unpaid debt.

About the only people who will object would be the French (who can do nothing about it) and-maybe-the US. The "maybe" is that little or no US/CS trade that does exist will be seaborne (and what there is can easily shift to overland). Too, Yankee ship owners would make a killing sending CS exports via US ports/ships to bypass the blockade. The UK wouldn't object because they are not going to expand hostilities to the US. If nothing else, US profiteering is another form of pressure on the CS to resu
me proper debt payments.

Why would the US care if the UK raided outlying CSA plantations if they aren't staying? It would no longer be US territory anyways.
 
Depends on wha you mean. Is it going to fail as a state in the long run? Hell yes, a nation with a ridiculous wealth gap and a third of its population in perpetual servitude of one form or another and an upper class hopelessly out of touch with their own economic realities.

However, as an authoritarian state which is built on repression and keeping the poor/non-whites down, it can feasibly last for a while until the pressure builds up and it crumbles through an internal revolution.

Since it's going to be a state built with an 'us versus them' mentality from the start it can run on those paranoia fumes for a long time if other regimes like South Africa and the USSR are comparible.
 
Who said anything about being ended by internal pressure? Slaveholders had extreme incentive for keeping slavery, and would try to suppress any attempts to end it. Any "internal pressure" would be stopped at gunpoint.

I was responding to someone who said that slavery was barely tenable in the 1860s. That is simply incorrect.

It might not have been a big problem, but it was still expensive relatively to no slavery.

No, slavery was cheaper. That was the whole point. Yes, there were some costs imposed on the system which did not have free labour equivalents (slavery patrols etc), but there were other aspects which made slavery cheaper. Lower wages being the most obvious of those.

Hint: free soil farmers who moved west were so violently opposed to slavery precisely because they knew they would be out-competed by slave-using farmers.

CSA would had much slower economic growth than the north (in areas other than plantations or mining), and while they might have survived indefinitely as long as there was peace, in war without prior modernization they would be stomped by North, no matter how many allies would have got (any help would arrive too late to save South from North).

I'd agree that the South would have a slower pace of industrialisation relative to the North. It was considerably behind, and in relative terms would fall further behind. But that's irrelevant to what I was discussing, which was the internal viability of a slaveowning CSA.

I disagree on South industrializing. CSA had "king cotton", this was where money was, so there was no incentive to invest into modernization. They had disincentive toward industrialization, due to whole "keeping negroes down" and slaveholders maintain their power in general against urban capitalists with different interests.

This part, unfortunately, is where you are clearly unfamiliar with the economic history of how industrialisation proceeded in the South. Southern industrial production increased with every decade, even during the cotton boom years. Even during the long cotton boom of 1840-1860, Southern commerce and manufacturing grew at twice the rate of agriculture.

Moreover, slaveholders were not, as a group, opposed to urban capitalists. Often those were the same people. What happened was that there was always some interest in industrialisation, but that interest waxed and waned depending on cotton and tobacco prices. Where those prices were high, relatively more investment (and slave labour) was diverted into agricultural investments. Where those prices were low, much more of the investment when into urban and industrial pursuits. (Which were not synonymous, by the way; much industrialisation was in semi-rural locations). Even during the agricultural boom times, however, industrialisation continued.

Now, as the OTL history of cotton prices shows, cotton was in for a long-term decline over many years - with occasional spikes, but a long-term downward trend. In particular, between about 1860-1880, cotton prices were severely low. These were exactly the conditions which had enhanced industrialisation in the CSA previously (during earlier cotton price depressions) and would do so again.

Slavery might not be so largely acceptable to every free white person anymore, if rising white urban proletarian gets into fight with slavetraders who make their black slaves take their jobs from "decent white people". Risk of social upheaval might be another reason for Slavepower to avoid any further industrialization.

The history of how things were managed up until 1860 suggests otherwise. The white urban proletariat was not a big group in the CSA, at all, and the available evidence suggests that what conflict there was could be managed based on a combination of segregation of job classes and/or reserving some supervisory and specialist positions for whites.
 
I was responding to someone who said that slavery was barely tenable in the 1860s. That is simply incorrect.



No, slavery was cheaper. That was the whole point. Yes, there were some costs imposed on the system which did not have free labour equivalents (slavery patrols etc), but there were other aspects which made slavery cheaper. Lower wages being the most obvious of those.

Hint: free soil farmers who moved west were so violently opposed to slavery precisely because they knew they would be out-competed by slave-using farmers.

His point was the costs were externalized. It is easy to outcompete if you are subsidized and he is not.
 
No, slavery was cheaper. That was the whole point.
If slavery was cheaper (as entire system, not regarding individual having choice between slave workers or hired workers), then why Northern states outperformed South economically?
It was cheaper to slave owners, because system was subsidizing them at expense of everyone else.
How did poor southern white man benefit from slavery? Sure, cotton was cheaper, but often the only job around was slave-catching.
His point was the costs were externalized. It is easy to outcompete if you are subsidized and he is not.
Precisely.
Hint: free soil farmers who moved west were so violently opposed to slavery precisely because they knew they would be out-competed by slave-using farmers.
Yes, thats the point I am making. Slaveowners would get rich at expense of everyone else.
I'd agree that the South would have a slower pace of industrialisation relative to the North. It was considerably behind, and in relative terms would fall further behind. But that's irrelevant to what I was discussing, which was the internal viability of a slaveowning CSA.
Ok. As I said, CSA would not fall apart, but would progress slower than North, so we are in agreement on this.
Moreover, slaveholders were not, as a group, opposed to urban capitalists.
Weren't they competing for labour, as in higher-bidder-bough-the-slaves?
Often those were the same people..
Of course, all over the world line between bourgeois industrialists and aristocratic landowners was thin, but they had their unique leanings, and differing interests. This would become prominent only after few decades, when due to technological advancement factory work would become too difficult for illiterate slave. Urban capitalist would want to educate slaves enough to work with new tools, landholders would object.
The white urban proletariat was not a big group in the CSA, at all, and the available evidence suggests that what conflict there was could be managed based on a combination of segregation of job classes and/or reserving some supervisory and specialist positions for whites.
I was implying there might develop one over time in surviving-alt-CSA, not that there was in OTL-CSA. Okay, there was no white proletariat, and I doubt they would all fill managerial positions. That begs the question: If whites were majority in South, and most blue-collar jobs was taken by slaves, wasn't there a large number of unemployed uneducated poor whites, who were either unemployed, living on sustenance farming, or doing slave patrols (last which were not useful jobs, since most countries did fine without slaves or slave-catchers)

this page:
http://www.jameslafond.com/article.php?id=2148&pr=0
Has many accounts on slavery, how wretched system was. Poor whites did not necessarily liked slavery, but slave-catching was only job around, and often was compulsory.
 
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Poor Whites are likely to be trapped in Appalachian-style poverty semi-permanently. The young and ambitious will emigrate to the Union in mass numbers. Those that remain behind will follow Huey Long style populist demagogues.
 
I think that in part we've been talking past each other. My objection is to the oft-expressed view that the CSA was just waiting to fall in a heap based on internal pressures. My view is that the CSA had plenty of problems, but that overall it would probably continue as a viable entity, except for potential external pressure.

If slavery was cheaper (as entire system, not regarding individual having choice between slave workers or hired workers), then why Northern states outperformed South economically?
It was cheaper to slave owners, because system was subsidizing them at expense of everyone else.

In 1860 the per capita incomes (total population) of the South was roughly comparable or superior to the Northern states from Ohio westward. The southern Atlantic states were slightly below the average of the northwestern states, but the remaining Southern states were higher than the average of the northwestern states.

Only the Northeastern states (Pennsylvania to Maine) had a notably higher per capita income. And the main reason that their per capita income was higher was because they had a significantly lower fertility rate than the rest of the USA. They had a smaller percentage of their population being below working age, and a greater portion of their population as working age, hence their per capita incomes were notably higher.

How did poor southern white man benefit from slavery? Sure, cotton was cheaper, but often the only job around was slave-catching.

Poor southern white men benefited because, on average, the per capita income for the free population was higher than it was in most of the North. (Considerably higher than the Northwest, not very far behind the Northeast after allowing for differences in demographics). Yes, there were some poor white southerners who struggled to find any employment, but on the whole they managed relatively well.

To the Southern mindset of the time, it was the higher per capita income for free population which mattered. Lower "wages" for slaves (i.e. what needs to be spent by the owner to keep slaves functioning - food, clothing etc) flowed through into higher wages for free workers.

Weren't they competing for labour, as in higher-bidder-bough-the-slaves?
Of course, all over the world line between bourgeois industrialists and aristocratic landowners was thin, but they had their unique leanings, and differing interests.

The wealthier classes were competing with each other for labour, but they were not in class competition between urban capitalist and rural landowner. A few individual planters may have been ideologically committed to "ye old Southern rural lifestyle". However, that view was not deep-rooted, and was easily malleable based on changes in economic circumstances. The example of the 1830s/1840s - when suddenly everyone became keenly interested in manufacturing and urban pursuits because cotton and tobacco prices were low - shows how they would likely adapt to future cotton price depressions. (And the one coming between 1860-1880 was a massive cotton price depression.)

This would become prominent only after few decades, when due to technological advancement factory work would become too difficult for illiterate slave. Urban capitalist would want to educate slaves enough to work with new tools, landholders would object.

My impression of the kind of factory work and mass production that was early twentieth-century manufacturing (e.g. Henry Ford's assembly line) was that it did not require significant literacy. The way in which tasks were broken down in Ford's assembly line (in Ford's case, for immigrant workers who were largely illiterate in English) is a good parallel for how manufacturing would work with slaves who were not meant to be literate. (A few Southerners taught their slaves literacy anyway, of course. But not very many.)

I was implying there might develop one over time in surviving-alt-CSA, not that there was in OTL-CSA. Okay, there was no white proletariat, and I doubt they would all fill managerial positions. That begs the question: If whites were majority in South, and most blue-collar jobs was taken by slaves, wasn't there a large number of unemployed uneducated poor whites, who were either unemployed, living on sustenance farming, or doing slave patrols (last which were not useful jobs, since most countries did fine without slaves or slave-catchers)

As per above, the average income for free workers were reasonably high in the South. There was some unemployment in some periods, but on the whole the South had a chronic long-term labour shortage, largely due to the relative lack of immigration. (Which as an aside, was due both to the presence of slavery and worse disease environment in the South).

What I suspect would happen would be a segregation by role (supervisory/specialist positions for whites) and/or by industrial sector (e.g. in OTL, the post-ACW South went mostly textiles for whites, ironworking for blacks). This is an extension of the existing trends which happened in the antebellum South.
 
Even if by some miracle the South manages to win the Civil War (hardly a foregone conclusion; despite all the hype about Confederate military prowess, the Union was able to beat the Confederacy despite not having mobilized to anywhere near the degree the South had. See Grant's memoirs, especially chapter 68, for details.), the South is not going to last out the 1800s.

At the end of the day, the sole reason the South seceded was to preserve chattel slavery, which is really only a one-trick pony. It's great for cash crop agriculture, but it's massively inefficient for industrialization. Even worse, the fact that slavery existed in the South resulted in a social devaluation of labor. To the average white Southerner pre Civil War, labor of any sort was socially demeaning. The great end goal of Southern society pre Civil War was to own slaves specifically so they would not have to work. And any attempt to reform the system will be either laughed out of the room, or chased out of the room with torches and pitchforks.

As a result, even if the South does manage to pull of secession, it's going to economically stagnate because the whole slavery system is a zero-sum game (slave-powered agriculture requires a fair amount of land to be profitable, and that land has to be a certain kind of land for it to work, and there's only so much of that land to go around), meaning that people are going to look elsewhere for opportunity. Which leads to upheaval.

And while that upheaval is going on, the Union is going to be looking for every opportunity to launch a reconquest. Which, given the amount of military reform and militarization that I expect a defeated Union to go through after what will have been the worst military defeat and biggest national humiliation in American history, the South will not survive.

To sum up, I give an independent Confederacy about ten years. Fifteen at most, before the first serious upheavals, closely followed by invasion.
 
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