Successful CSA question: where does the revenue come from?

bguy

Donor
Particularly since it is probably going to take longer than OTL for Southern cotton production to recover. In OTL the South went back to US dollars which drastically reduced inflation, did not have to pay back CSA or state debt incurred during the war, had their railroads rebuilt by the North, got food from Northern charities, had schools built on Northern money, didn't have to spend any of its own money on the military and Union troop pay was spent in the South and in fact will have to maintain a large military at its own expense. None of this will happen with a successful CSA which increases costs for the planters. This costs mean they won't be able to buy tools, machinery, barns, horses and other draft animals and other things as quickly as OTL which will reduce cotton production.

OTOH importing manufactured goods into the CSA will be a lot cheaper than post-war OTL, since the CSA will be behind a much lower tariff wall. (Even the 20% rate we've discussed the CSA adopting would only be about half of what US tariff levels were post-war.)

And wouldn't not having to pay back CSA and state debt incurred during the war actually have hurt the South since most of that money was presumably owed to Southeners which means the cancellation of those debts effectively destroyed a great deal of the South's wealth. (And its not as though the Southerners are actually getting out of paying for the war, since their taxes will still be going to help pay the North's war debt.)
 
OTOH importing manufactured goods into the CSA will be a lot cheaper than post-war OTL, since the CSA will be behind a much lower tariff wall. (Even the 20% rate we've discussed the CSA adopting would only be about half of what US tariff levels were post-war.)

Makes sense to me.

And wouldn't not having to pay back CSA and state debt incurred during the war actually have hurt the South since most of that money was presumably owed to Southeners which means the cancellation of those debts effectively destroyed a great deal of the South's wealth. (And its not as though the Southerners are actually getting out of paying for the war, since their taxes will still be going to help pay the North's war debt.)

That may be true, I think. I suppose a solution of paying back like half the debts while covering other half thru tariffs, etc., *might* possibly work, though. It might, anyhow(though, TBH, I don't know for sure).
 
Or could they? Fiver, I've pointed this out before, but do remember that this was before the age of Labor....that, including the concept of striking, didn't take off until the 1880s IOTL. Now, to be fair, it can be said that the ideas' arriving in the CSA could very well be delayed for a little while, possibly.....but it would eventually become known to people in the C.S. as well. And when it does, who is to say that some slaves wouldn't catch on to what white workers were doing and try to imitate them?

Of course, such efforts often wouldn't end all that well, and some more reactionary Confeds, would call even the most peaceful resistance a "revolt" anyway. However, many more moderate Confederates, I might add, probably would feel a little queasy hearing about extreme violence meted out as punishment against peaceful protests, even if the disobedient workers happen to be slaves.

TBH, it's not really impossible. Given the right circumstances, such things very well could have taken place.

I was not speculating, I was using actual history, as covered in Kenneth Stamp's The Peculiar Institution. Stampp discussed the extensive use of slaves in several industries. Tedegar Iron Works started using slave workers as a means of reducing costs in 1844. The white workers went on strike in 1847. The strike failed and everyone except the bosses were replaced by more slaves.
 
OTOH importing manufactured goods into the CSA will be a lot cheaper than post-war OTL, since the CSA will be behind a much lower tariff wall. (Even the 20% rate we've discussed the CSA adopting would only be about half of what US tariff levels were post-war.)

And wouldn't not having to pay back CSA and state debt incurred during the war actually have hurt the South since most of that money was presumably owed to Southeners which means the cancellation of those debts effectively destroyed a great deal of the South's wealth. (And its not as though the Southerners are actually getting out of paying for the war, since their taxes will still be going to help pay the North's war debt.)

Actually the wealth was created when the money was borrowed, paying it back merely transfers it back to where it started. The lender now has more money and may well invest it but the borrower now has less so you haven't gained anything paying it back except for being able to loan money in the future to create more wealth. For example let's say Joe loaned the CSA $10,000 at 15% interest. The CSA used the $10,000 to buy guns and now has to pay Joe back $1,500 + part of the principle every year. The guns were already purchased and paid for so they aren't created again. Now the borrower has $1,500 more to invest BUT the CSA has $1,500 less and it has to make that up somehow, either in taxes or inflation. It DOES help them from a future loans point of view as they can get new loans a lot easier if they pay the old loans back. Now if Joe is English than the payback is a dead loss to the CSA. Now normally not paying back a loan makes getting a new one very expensive or impossible. OTL that wasn't the case. The US canceling the state of Texas war debt didn't make Texas less credit worthy but more. The people who loaned Texas money during the war knew they weren't going to get paid back if the CSA lost which is why they charged a high interest. Since the CSA lost the war the debt cancelation only improved the credit worthiness of Texas as now Texas has less debt and is now part of the more stable and credit worthy US rather than the CSA.
 
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I was not speculating, I was using actual history, as covered in Kenneth Stamp's The Peculiar Institution. Stampp discussed the extensive use of slaves in several industries. Tedegar Iron Works started using slave workers as a means of reducing costs in 1844. The white workers went on strike in 1847. The strike failed and everyone except the bosses were replaced by more slaves.

Alright, well, I wasn't disputing the use of slaves in industry at all, TBH. So it seems that you missed my point, at least to an extent.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that even though the concept pf striking may have been around well before 1880(in fact, one of the earliest references I've found to a strike was in the 1830's, and the term itself may have been around as early as 1768 according to one source.), strikes, again, did not become a general thing until around 1880 or so in our world(though there was a brief peak in activity from 1828-35 or so), with the trend starting circa 1870-75 or so.

Again, even though labor activism could potentially be delayed in the C.S. for a little while, it's going to filter it's way down there eventually. And again, I ask, what's to stop some disgruntled slaves from imitating white workers' actions? BTW, it was known for a long time that revolts and running away were not the only ways that indentured Afro-Americans could resist:

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavery/a/How-Did-Slaves-Resist-Slavery.htm
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/slavery/a/How-Did-Slaves-Resist-Slavery_2.htm
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1609-1865/essays/slaveresist.htm
https://americanhistoryrules.wikispaces.com/slavery_resistance

In all honestly, there is really nothing that I have ever found that says that individual slaves or groups of slaves could not also resist by peacefully stopping work and demanding better conditions, pay, etc.; it wouldn't always work out, no, that may be true. And certainly, many of these would end in bloodshed. But who's to say it couldn't be tried?
 
In all honestly, there is really nothing that I have ever found that says that individual slaves or groups of slaves could not also resist by peacefully stopping work and demanding better conditions, pay, etc.; it wouldn't always work out, no, that may be true. And certainly, many of these would end in bloodshed. But who's to say it couldn't be tried?

If your reaction to a free worker refusing to work is to whip him, the vast majority of people will react violently. If your reaction it a slave refusing to work is to whip him, the vast majority of people who aren't antislavery will approve.

Striking slaves may be technically possible, but that element - both the actual practice and the threat of it - kills strikes dead in a way impossible to do unto free labor. It - to be brutally candid - makes about as much sense as horses striking, thanks to the (lack of) status of slaves.
 
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Firstly, I'd like to point out that even though the concept pf striking may have been around well before 1880(in fact, one of the earliest references I've found to a strike was in the 1830's, and the term itself may have been around as early as 1768 according to one source.), strikes, again, did not become a general thing until around 1880 or so in our world(though there was a brief peak in activity from 1828-35 or so), with the trend starting circa 1870-75 or so.

The rise of a national labour movement in the USA can be dated to roughly the 1880s - although the NLU was formed in 1866, and there were craft unions pre-ACW - but strikes were around much earlier than that.

The first thing that could be called a general strike - that I can think of offhand - was the British 1842 General Strike, which ranged across a variety of industries and a good part of the country.

Organized, multi-state strikes were not as common in the USA during the first half of the nineteenth century - mostly because the industrialisation was not as advanced as in the UK at that time - but smaller strikes were reasonably common in the USA throughout that timeframe.

Slaves were used as strike-breakers in some instances, and even when not specifically used for that purpose, one of the advantages of slaves was that they couldn't strike.

Again, even though labor activism could potentially be delayed in the C.S. for a little while, it's going to filter it's way down there eventually.

Among whites, certainly. Among free blacks, quite possibly - they had been known to go on strike before the ACW, for instance. Among slaves - you've got to be kidding.

And again, I ask, what's to stop some disgruntled slaves from imitating white workers' actions?

Because the disciplinary / retribution actions that could be taken against striking slaves were far, far greater than anything which would be acceptable against striking whites. Up to and including death. To be blunt, the idea is a complete non-starter.
 
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The question can only be answered once we know specifics of this victorious CSA. In an "ideal" world from a CSA perspective, peace comes in 1862 when ASBs wish away Union troops and resolve. In that scenario, CSA production recovers quickly and the government should be on OK financial situation.

In any realistic scenario, CSA wins only after a long grueling war won by attrition that sees a lot of its manpower destroyed with white casualties and runaway slaves before Union morale wilts. A lot of the country is occupied and will likely be ceded to the USA in any final peace agreement (Tennessee, control of the Mississippi River, and any Apallachian territoryw ith pro-Union sentiment occupied by Federal troops). There is a lot of infrastructure destroyed by Sherman's March as well as ongoing raids by Confederates who destroy their own country's infrastructure to deny it to Federal troops. There is also the significant possibility that any Union occupied ports will only be vacated by the Federal Army after severe vandalism and destruction.

In such a scenario, there will not be a sudden recovery to prewar levels for many years. Confederate cotton may be superior to Egyptian and Indian cotton, but it is going to be very hard before cotton production recovers. Agricultural workforce will be much reduced, and ordinary farmers will be more interested in growing food than cash crops.

If the British and French decide they are going to invest in the CSA to boost cotton production, they are going to own most of the important economic assets of the CSA economy. The benefits will go to them, not the population of the CSA. Confederates will find they have even less control of their own affairs than they did in the Union.

There is going to be a lot of political instability.

The government may avoid default, but just barely and at the expense of society making the kinds of investment it needs to prosper.

"Just increase taxes" is how governments always react to that situation, but there is a limit to how much it can get. Black markets will flourish eroding Confederate tax collection. There will be tax rebellions. Some people will just get up and leave, probably for the USA but some people might go to Mexico or Latin America.
 
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