The USA after CSA victory

King Gorilla said:
But slave labor for the Nazis was expendable, for a typical CSA plantation owner they would represent the bulk of his net work. Consequently, as industrial slaves engage in passive resistance as all slaves are want to do, it would be easier for the slaves to sabotage production and harder for the factory owner to repremand them.

Harder to reprimand? What else is a whip for?

Besides, it's slave labor. Much cheaper than anything up north.
 
Mr.Bluenote said:
Bonds? To the best of my knowledge the Planters never took out international loans, or loans in general, to pay for their slaves, which basically means that the issue of compensation could be kept fairly simple. I never really thought the economics were that difficult. Slavery was run and paid for in a, shall we say, closed domestic economical circle.

Ransom adopts the argument that there would be 5.5 million slaves by 1880, and estimates their cost at, on average, $4800 to $5800 to emancipate them.

That works out to about twenty-five billion dollars.

In a society that opposes internal improvements, and lacks public education, how will you convince people to pay taxes to help the rich out of a financial difficulty?

Hmm, I think you've used that argument before, Faeelin, but I'd like to see some references. I haven't read anything suggesting that Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Reb wanted a slave enough to go to war for it, or even actually wanted a slave. In a time of urbanisation and mechanization why would people at the time want a slave? It's like asking a modern man/women if they would want a servant or anykind of employee.

Cheap labor, of course. Or as a servant. Hell, look at the migrant workers in modern agriculture.

Anyway, with an influx of immigrants to the USA, increased centralization and industrialization etc etc., it is possible that Socialism and perhaps even Communism might rear its ugly head in form of some sort of revolution. The northern magnates were generally very unpleasant and not very caring people, the workers conditions - both living and otherwise - in many cases quite horrible and new, dangerous ideas were flowing in from Europe. Without the social workings of the post-ACW periode, the entire idea of the American Dream might not arise, and thus the wokers have no outlet for their pent up frustration. Add to that the situation of the lost civil war and we have a potential powder keg. As I noted before, the political and social ramnifications on the USA of a lost civil war are not to be underestimated. Things will no doubt play out quite differently from OTL!

But American citizens still have the vote, which means people can take their grievances out at the ballot box.

No! Slaves, and their families, are basically hired for life. Everything is provided for by their "employer"! You hire a field hand for the day, the month, the harvest and let him fend for himself the rest of the time. I can't see mordern industry thrive on slave labour - it's just not economical sense in any way!

You can either pay an employee a salary, or keep them at a subsistence wage, and any offspring are future employees. How would this possibly be less economical?
 
Mr.Bluenote said:
that the end of slavery was forced upon the CSA (well, it's a kind of social change, I suppose), it was outfaced in other countries due to numerous factors - mostly that it just didn't pay anymore. We Danes like to claim that we outlawed slavery for humanitarian reasons, but basically it did not make any money, and thus it was possible to end slavery. Had it made money, no we way we would have given up slavery that easy!

Ah, but the British caribbean isles were still profitble in the 1830s; and the south was making money on cotton in 1860.

Your argument is circular here. You say that slavery is unprofitable because it died out, and then that it would die out because it is unprofitable.
 
Faeelin said:
Harder to reprimand? What else is a whip for?

Besides, it's slave labor. Much cheaper than anything up north.

A floging is different from a bullet to the back of the head or a trip to a death camp. At worst the slave will be beaten and sent back to the plantation to be beaten some more for "deliberately" causing an industrial accident. And while not paying your employees may at first seem cheaper you have to remember that they are still worth between $3,000 and $10,000 in 1860s dollars. If an employee in a northern factory got sick or injured he could be fired and an employee brought in to take his place, a slave no matter his or her state still represents a significant amount of capital.

While southern slave labor factories may end up producing profitable exports, they would never create the much cherish domestic market that arises when domestic workers buy large amounts of domestic goods and services thus begetting more domestic jobs to be filled by more domestic workers etc. as those slave laborers won't have any money to spend. Consequently the south will have difficult time creating a large and stable middle class and/or middle class meaning that they would more or less end up being a third world banana republic.
 
Migrant workers are going to come to the CSA. It isn't likely to suddenly become a pariah state since it shall still probably be more liberal and easy to live in (theory if not in practice) than many other nations.

Migrant workers shall eventually, due to their population, become more profitable to employ than slaves all year around. Slaves you have to feed, clothe and shelter are going to be more expensive than migrant workers who you can pay a pittance.

Besides, I would have thought a CSA would be increasingly suspicious of their slave population. A quite possibly revanchist USA to the north, they make a perfect 5th column. They can either try and subdue this threat by trying to limit/shrink the number of slaves.. or try and offer them some social reasons to be loyal.

As for the USA.. more liberal after the defeat? Maybe in mindset, but this doesn't nessasarilly follow. If the USA has just been defeated, even more humiliated, in a war then there may be a significant culture shock. It obviously pays to be conservative, we need a significant and well trained/equipped standing army/navy. We need strong politicians and policies so we can wash away this stain on our honour and so on and so forth.

That said it rather depends on how you view the CSA. If you imagine it as some sort of mystical state where the 1860's never move on, there is effectively no government or centralisation of ANY form and the social state of the nation never ever changes even a hundred years post victory then the USA's post war history probably is only for the best. If however you imagine the CSA shall perform more like every contempory nation in the world... then things are alot less rosy for the USA.
 
Earling said:
If however you imagine the CSA shall perform more like every contempory nation in the world... then things are alot less rosy for the USA.

What sort of contemporary nations are you refering too. I would agree with this if the south ends up following the path taken by the United States, Canada and the European powers but given the basis of the South's economy and society I think it will end up having alot more in common with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
 
Earling said:
Migrant workers are going to come to the CSA. It isn't likely to suddenly become a pariah state since it shall still probably be more liberal and easy to live in (theory if not in practice) than many other nations.

You mean, the way the south attracted the masses yearning to breathe free in OTL?

Uhuh...

. If however you imagine the CSA shall perform more like every contempory nation in the world... then things are alot less rosy for the USA.

Only if the CSA gets into its stupid head to take on a vastly more populous and industrial nation repeatedly.
 

Onyx

Banned
I would think that Judah Benjamin would've assassinated Jefferson and the Cabinet and become president since he was always the mastermind behind the CSA.
He would've decrease Anti-semitism even if it meant doing a crackdown on the KKK. And since he was Jewish, there might've been a larger number of Jews going to the South than to the north.

And if any of you probably are disagreeing with me and why, its called the Jewish Conspiracy my friend!

1st Jewish Leader in the entire world, and they say it couldn't be done....
Eat it you Anti-semitic bastards!!!!
 
Precisely:D

Though depending on the era the coups would have had progressive, reactionary or populist motivations.

Hmmm. A progressive coup? I don't think so.

Generally, coups are revolutions from the top. They're elites who, dissatisfied with the compromises of dealing with lower classes or untidy middle or entrepreneurial classes, simply dispense with all that nonsense and declare dictatorship.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a progressive coup. I suspect that some ninny will point to Chile under Pinochet, but the truth of Pinochet's Chile was that the entrepreneurial class and small business classes there were all but wiped out, the middle classes took a fist up the rear, the overall level of poverty skyrocketed, and wealth concentrated dramatically in the hands of an elite which supported Pinochet.

I suppose Mussolini could be argued as a populist takeover. But even there, if you look at the details of who supported the fascists, where there funding came from, and who they supported... well, it was always for the landowners against the peasants.

The notion of an enlightened despot taking over and reforming society is a profoundly compelling one, but not all that common.
 
Would the CSA in the 20th century approach the USA about monetary union or at least a long term pegging of the CSA dollar to the USA dollar? Although they wouldn't publicize it, I would suspect that the CSA dollar would be pegged to the USA dollar at many points simply to hold down the CS temptation to rapidly devalue their currency in order to compete with the USA on the global market. Even if the CSA economy is very poor, at least pegging would offer some respectability on the world market no matter how much suffering it would bring to the people.

Otherwise, we are looking at a situation where the CSA dollar resembles the old Italian lira: constant devaluation and absurdly inflated currency. Devaluation also works to make exports attractive for a while, but it's not a long term solution. Something tells me that the Confederates would not ask for a "monetary summit" with the USA out of pride or perhaps fear of greater control by the USA.
 
Hmmm. A progressive coup? I don't think so.

Generally, coups are revolutions from the top. They're elites who, dissatisfied with the compromises of dealing with lower classes or untidy middle or entrepreneurial classes, simply dispense with all that nonsense and declare dictatorship.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a progressive coup. I suspect that some ninny will point to Chile under Pinochet, but the truth of Pinochet's Chile was that the entrepreneurial class and small business classes there were all but wiped out, the middle classes took a fist up the rear, the overall level of poverty skyrocketed, and wealth concentrated dramatically in the hands of an elite which supported Pinochet.

I suppose Mussolini could be argued as a populist takeover. But even there, if you look at the details of who supported the fascists, where there funding came from, and who they supported... well, it was always for the landowners against the peasants.

The notion of an enlightened despot taking over and reforming society is a profoundly compelling one, but not all that common.

Well that was four years ago and this thread was the result of a considerable amount of thread necromancery.If I recall correctly, my idea at the time for a "progressive" coup was something along the lines of this.

The south is being hit by a protracted economic crises, after the end of a commodities boom. The urban working class was particularly hard hit by this. The confederate government both lacks the will and ability to take any serious measures to combat this. Furthermore confederate politics has coalesced largely into an old guard of elite families, effectively becoming an aristocracy. The military, at this time, is the single greatest unifying force in the confederate state. It keeps this position, both due to the shared suffering of the independence war, and the necessity to guard against both northern invasion and slave insurrection. The officer corps are likewise home to the "best and brightest" of the confederacy's youth. The younger officers, are less accepting of the traditionalism of old, and have seen first hand how far behind the confederacy has fallen compared to the US, UK and France. They believe that urgent modernization is needed to save the CSA as a nation, and the only way to do so is too sweep away the old guard. So they launch a coup with the assistence of the urban middle classes, tailoring their message towards populism and greater industrial reforms. With the support of a sizable portion of the population, the old confederate government topples, and a military junta takes its place. The coup plotters will then almost invariably bollocks it all up.
 
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