The north is still going to outclass the south in many things but if the south can industrialize like this they could lower gap a decent bit which leads to the possibility of them being able to compete on more even footing later due to their more authoritative control over some industries.
Your dismissing the possibility of a slave revolt which is possible in a unstable CSA. People poor and rich in the south still fear the possibility of a other Haitian type of revolution. Slavery is going to lead the black population being in the 60 percent or more in the Deep South. The south probably puts it down but many people are likely going to start thinking slavery is a outdated way of dealing with the “African Problem/question”. The CSA especially the poor might think continued cattle slavery will leave them too outnumbered by blacks so a gradual end to official slavery is started in the 1880s and ends around 1900. The south thinks about deporting them(not realistic choose) so they go with strict apartheid. Before slavery is ended the black population is sold more evenly across the CSA to lower the amount of areas they hold majority in before they are given serf like status. By the 20s and 30s they become second class citizens?
Social mobility in some form is vital to development. If your society doesn’t have social mobility stagnation could happen. The reason the US got so many people and immigrants is because of more social mobility then compared to Europe. The countries that often industrialize first are ones with the most social mobility.Social mobility is not key for industrialization. Investment capital, a trained work force, tools, and machinery are necessary for industrialization.
The labor force would be cheaper in the Confederacy if you only need unskilled labor, but lack of educational facilities in the South means skilled workers would probably have to be paid as much or more than skilled workers in the Union. And wages are only part of the cost of production. The Confederacy was strongly against "internal improvements", so they will not be pandering to northern industrialists. This same opposition to internal improvements means the Confederacy will have inferior infrastructure, which increases the cost of getting Confederate goods to market. The Confederacy had virtually no hard currency, it would all be fiat paper money, which means the Confederacy will have higher inflation, which will drive up both the risk and the cost of Northerners investing in Confederate businesses. The Confederacy also lacked investment capital - northern banks and investors are more likely to invest in Union industries. If The Confederacy starts nationalizing some industry, as you have proposed, foreign investment in Confederate firms will evaporate. Lower Confederate import tariffs mean that the Confederacy will have a hard time developing local production of machinery and tools. It would be cheaper for an industrialist in the Union to purchase machinery and tools made in the Union than for an industrialist in the Confederacy to import those same tools and machinery. Even if import tariffs are lower in the Confederacy, overall taxes would be higher since the Civil War had a much higher cost per person in the Confederacy than in the Union. The Confederacy has a much smaller market than the Union - for every 1 USA taxpayer there are 3.8 CSA taxpayers. The Confederacy allows export tariffs , which the Union Constitution forbids, so Confederate exports will be much more expensive. Capitalists who stay in the Union may pay more for labor, but goods shipped from the Confederacy will cost more due to paying transportation costs, Confederate export tariffs, and Union import tariffs. The Union will still be buying raw materials from the Confederacy, but locally produced finished goods will be cheaper than imports from the Confederacy and don't risk you getting boycotted by abolitionists, and free blacks.
The so-called social mobility in the TTL CSA would be much less than OTL South. You need a strong education system to ensure true social mobility, since uneducated people could not hope to join the upper social stratas, and Southern conservatives opposed public education. And ITTL CSA upper class would be much more aristocratic in nature, which would also deter the supposed social mobility. Additionally, the CSA would lack attractive job opportunities in industries to attract highly skilled immigrants. Finally, immigrants who are liberals, progressives, radicals, socialists would reject the TTL CSA anyway.Social mobility in some form is vital to development. If your society doesn’t have social mobility stagnation could happen. The reason the US got so many people and immigrants is because of more social mobility then compared to Europe. The countries that often industrialize first are ones with the most social mobility.
Southern industrialization could be found on a economy based on exploitation and expansion?
Think how exploitation economics developed in the last two centuries?
The CSA starts doing what right wing regimes starting doing in the next century a bit earlier.
Instead of trying to keep up with the west the CSA is constantly trying to catch up and out do the US.
But what happens if a rented Slave is killed in an accident? Would there be a lawsuit or would provisions have been agreed upon in the rental contract or maybe an insurance policy. Whatever is agreed on, it would cost more than $20
The only issue with that it isn’t as economically profitable on a mass scale especially in the long run and likely pisses off a lot of people. You can more cheaply hire poor whites or even indebted labor. Slave labor in more industrial jobs will be there but mostly for low risk labor(it can still be a hard job and suck but chances of them dying or maimed is extremely less in the jobs they get. I remember reading one British writing about being in south. He asked a man who was dealing with unloading ship cargo why the slaves were sitting around while whites unload cargo. He stated something about not wanting to risk breaking the backs of the slave he paid good money for. He then went on about how it was cheaper to have Irish immigrants do it because if they break their back he doesn’t lose much. Blacks might not be considered equal but they are considered more valuable money wise. Think of the coal mines in Appalachia and how they used animals there. They rather send humans to die and get maimed in mines because to owners they are worth less money wise then a animal(how they often saw blacks). If that donkey dies or gets maimed that costs him more money then having its cheap labor die or get maimed. He had to buy and take care of donkey not the people which is similar to how they saw slavery) If rented slaves die or get maimed they have to repay for damages(think how much that could cost them in comparison to cheap wage labor). If some lower class white or Irish immigrant die or gets maimed they don’t have to pay anyone back. That’s actually less people they have to pay now because they are either died or they fire them after getting hurt and can easily replace them with people desperate for work.Presumably, there would be provisions in the contract to reimburse the slave owner if the rented slave is killed or crippled. I don't know the exact economics, but "Flour mills, textile mills, government-funded projects, tobacco factories, and iron manufacturers used enslaved labor to keep the cost of production low."
Agreed, they might have to learn this firsthand before realizing it but they would quickly figure out its easier to hire cheap white labor over slaves. A slave can be a lot of legal paper work and you don’t want them maimed or killed in dangerous factory work(field is brutal but your less likely to lose limbs and die farming then a factory. If your a slave missing a foot that’s probably not accident. That was likely a punishment. The factory is the other way around). Wage labor is cheaper for a factory and mine given the high amount of risk and high price of slave labor. Romans only worked slaves in mines because they had plenty of slaves to spare. The south does not. If cheap wage labor dies or gets hurt the boss doesn’t lose much. He can either fire him and has one less person to pay. They likely realize that quickly. Railroad work might even be considered too dangerous for slaves. The south might try to use indentured Chinese labor to build rails.
By 1860 the Tredegar Iron Works had become the largest producer of iron in the South, with a complex covering nearly five acres and employing close to 800 laborers, both black and white, free and slave." - National Park service
The only issue with that it isn’t as economically profitable on a mass scale especially in the long run and likely pisses off a lot of people. You can more cheaply hire poor whites or even indebted labor
I know all this. It would lead to a highly corrupt but economically profitable system that leads to rapid industrialization. That would lead to slave labor playing a more supportive or life blood role in industrialization. Slave labor is mostly still agriculture and cash crops base but growing slave labor in industrial sector not be the majority in most places outside the Deep South and even their it will only be half the workers at most. Too many slaves in industry leads to not enough being used to maximize production on plantations which aristocrats would be against. They will rent slaves but often only ones they are will to spare which won’t be enough for all industrial jobs but the threat of businesses bringing in more slave labor during strikes could neuter unions in confederacy almost completely(Appalachian racism and violence towards black in this situation could be seen as extreme by even the Deep South in this situation. Imagine how many of them were strong labor union people and how they hated people who supported companies during strikes especially people working during them. Now add racism towards. They might even form something like klan “to defend white working class rights against elites and their black chattel” in their words) Those tactics you listed hints towards the development of what many in the modern world would consider a highly corrupt and shady state but one where money often rules. The south isn’t going to go to organized extremism. A lot of it will just be people acting off impulse and acting like it is the Wild West. They aren’t planning or organizing Nazi or even Stalin level authoritarian acts but more Brazil, Edo Japan, Putin Russia, Apartheid South Africa, and Mexico on what type of unethical stuff it is doing. Slave labor would be feeding into industries more then actual dominating them. Slaves make the crops and do trivial work for the most part to build into the other industries. But the side effect of the practices you listed above is chattel slavery transitioning into more classical slavery which will greatly change mindsets because they are learning more skills and are probably more educated then before. What do you think some whites(not all but a growing number) will start thinking when they see blacks do more skilled jobs and showing higher levels of intelligence(has nothing to do with race. The more people are allow to learn the more intelligent you actually become)? They will look at them and see more of themselves and similarities especially if they are often working together and experiencing relatable suffering(a lot more interacting then with each other down south). They will start seeing them as more human. For example, look at Thomas Jefferson statement about I think a black Frenchman that visited him near the end of his life. Him just seeing a educated and aristocrat like man but with black skin made him question his previous ideas about blacks."Flour mills, textile mills, government-funded projects, tobacco factories, and iron manufacturers used enslaved labor to keep the cost of production low." - Liraray of Virginia
"One of Anderson's most notable decisions was to introduce slaves into skilled industrial work at the ironworks, and by 1864, more than half the workers at Tredegar were bondsmen." - Encyclopedia Virginia
"In 1847, in response to striking white workers, Anderson introduced slave labor into his facility. This controversial move helped cut costs and contributed to the Iron Works' continued growth. By 1860 the Tredegar Iron Works had become the largest producer of iron in the South, with a complex covering nearly five acres and employing close to 800 laborers, both black and white, free and slave." - National Park service
"Slavery existed in urban areas, too. According to historians, 400,000 souls — about 10 percent of the South’s slave population — lived in urban areas. After the harvest season, some rural slaves, who possessed trade skills, were “hired out” and worked temporarily in towns and cities until they were needed back on the farm." - North Carolina History Project
""Beyond these general characteristics southern industry's most interesting aspect was its wide and intensive use of slave labor. In the 1850's, for example (when the black population grew from 3.2 to 4 million persons), between 160,000 and 200,000 bondsmen - or about 5 per cent of the total slave population - worked in industry." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"Large numbers of slaves also labored in iron works in other southern regions. In South Carolina the Nesbitt Manufacturing Company owned about 140 Negroes, and the Aera and Aetna Iron Works used 90 bondsmen. Exploitaton of the central Alabama and central Missouri iron regions fell to the slave-owning Shelby Iron Company and to the slave-hiring Maramec Iron Works, respectively... Altogether, probably 10,000 slaves were employed in antebellum southern iron works." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"The manufacture of tobacco, centering in Virginia and North Carolina and expanding westward into Kentucky and Missouri during the 1850's, was an important southern industry... Prospering throughout the antebellum period, southern tobacco factories employed slave labor almost exclusively. Richmond's fifty-two tobaccories employed 3400 slaves in the 1850's, Petersburg's twenty establishments worked more than 2400 slaves, and Lynchburg's forty-seven companies used more than 1600." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"... most secondary manufacturing industries used bondsmen exclusively. For example, Savannah's 1848 census listed seventy-four slave "mechanics," while scores of "well-skilled" slave machinists worked Daniel Pratt's famous cotton gin factory in Alabama. Slave cobblers made slave brogans on many plantations, but in one large shoe factory twenty-six bondsmen produced 11,000 pairs of shoes annually. Slaves operated hundreds of southern tanneries; one Mobile bakery even employed sixteen slaves in 1860. Carolina and Kentucky papermakers used bondsmen... Large brick-manufacturing companies complemented the lesser brick production of many sugar plantations... in 1850 at one Biloxi Bay plant 116 male and 37 female slaves produced ten million bricks annually. Slave labor was so extensively used in all kinds of southern manufacturing efforts that one visitor concluded that "slaves are trained to every kind of manual labor. The blacksmith, cabinet-maker, carpenter, builder, wheelright - all have one or more slaves laboring at their trades. The negro is a third arm to every working man, who can possibly save money to purchase one"." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"The processing of agricultural crops was one of the most important southern industries, with sugar refining, rice milling and gristmilling together employing around 30,000 slaves... " - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"The rice milling industry was especially important to the economy of the South Carolina and Georgia tidewater and was dependent upon slave labor almost entirely... Slave labor was also essential to gristmilling, a leading industry in most southern regions..." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"Salt, the vital preservative, was produced with slave labor along the southern coasts, in western Virginia and eastern Kentucky, and in Arkansas.... By 1854, the number of saltworks [in Kanawha country, Virginia] had declined to forty, but employment had risen 1230 male and 67 female salt boilers, most of whom were slaves. In the 1850's, the eastern salt industry was being complemented by new production by slaves at the Petit Anse salt lake in Louisiana." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"Slaves were used greatly to log the pine, cypress and live-oak in the swamps and forests from Texas to Virginia and especially along the Gulf Coast... By 1860, the southern lumber industry engaged about 16,000 laborers, most of whom were slaves." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"Equally as vital as lumbering was the turpentine extraction and distillation industry, which centered in the Carolinas and was entirely dependent upon slave labor... By the 1850's, the turpentine industry had become crucial to the southern economy and was advancing into the Gulf States... In 1847, North Carolina alone employed almost 5000 slave turpentiners; and by 1860, the naval stores industry throughout the South employed about 15,000 slaves." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
"Southern internal improvement enterprises were so dependent upon slave labor that virtually all southern railroads, except for a few border-state lines, were either built by slave-employing contractors or by company-owned or hired bondsmen." - Industrial slavery in the Old South, Robert Starobin
Citation needed. This sounds made up based on stereotypes.Russia and Austria empires could have industrialized earlier if aristocrats were not so [...] inbred
True, but incentives are often relative. It’s the reason you have slaves who are extremely obedient to their masters. Brown nosing is often a tactic people use to make their terrible lives a bit easier(look at lives of Roman slaves). Many egotistical masters probably love people kissing their ass and would likely end up making life a lot less hard to slaves who do this(if the overseer randomly rapes or beats master favorite slave girl he might end up beating him or even killing him somehow. They are often short tempered and look at some slaves as a person now would look at their favorite dog or pet. That why the system is mess up. Is their like a psychological science that explains behavior like this? I often feel like people overlook the weird twisted mindset of these people). Whites still have good incentive in CSA since many believe they can move up(they will often think the extent of this is greater then it truly is which is important to consider. Americans especially southerners are often very good at exaggerating or twisted it’s ideologies). The south will have plenty of poor whites who got a bit lucky and moved into the upper class which will always give people more hope then a society where they only see legally hereditary people rule. The southern elite might not even be 1 percent but a republic run by 10 or 25 percent of population to variety of degrees. 5 percent are outrageously rich, other 5 is pretty wealthy but more on a local level or upper middle class, and the last 15 are just middle class voters or groups. It’s easier to make people believe in a plutocracy over a monarch or official monarchy because they see all these people living well and are told “that can be you if you work hard enough one day. That guy used to have nothing but work his way up”. Others will see this from a more narcissistic and twisted standpoint “screw everyone else. I’m going to make my own and take what I want. That’s what everyone else seems to be doing here. I might as well be part of it and make sure me and my friends and family benefit as much as possible”. Mindset like this could be more common then people think. The south is creating a society that is extremely social Darwinistic in outlook in life and the violent nature adds to this outlook. This is my opinion but people who are constantly having to worry about surviving and making it by in conditions like this I think revert back to more primal instincts as a side effect(we are animals). When a person only cares about surviving and taking care of their own stuff they are much more likely to disregard morals and can act more savage. I remember going to China and I went to this village that had had only seen a few people from outside of China. The village had zero animals not even a rat because the population saw all of them as food because the government doesn’t care about rural areas as much as urban ones(the CSA could have situations similar to this in many regions but with much more violence. CSA is going to have a lot of environmental damage later on). You will be surprised by what some humans are willing to accept if they always feel like there is a chance or hope. If your worried about eating and shelter often times you will see indifference towards the suffering of others when they don’t see or experience it personally(this is why I think racism part will eventually end because they are constantly interacting but the way society runs won’t change. Only the type of people they allow social mobility too).Slave societies, the communist experiment, and others have demonstrated that human nature says workers will work only as hard as they need to to avoid negative consequences. If you want them to work harder/more efficiently you need to give them some sort of incentives. OTL slaves being allowed to earn and keep money to buy freedom for themselves and/or family members was such an incentive. However by the ACW manumission, self-purchase were being eliminated and many states had in place or in process laws forcing free blacks to leave. Furthermore illiterate and marginally numerate workers can only go so far.