US State Capitalist after CSA wins ACW

TFSmith121

Banned
Actually, I was asking whether you wanted an interventionist

I did answer it, you simply didn't like the answer. Of course it takes a lot of ifs. What part of "lottery odds" don't you understand? I agree that the odds are millions to one against but millions to one longshots sometimes happen. In any case do you think that the government would encourage the spread of radio when it is invented? I think even a short term existence of a peaceful CSA would have some effect.

Actually, I was asking whether you wanted an interventionist federal government in the Nineteenth Century, an independent CSA, or both...

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Yeah, that's pretty tough...

I want both.

Yeah, that's pretty tough...good luck.

I don't see the rebels managing it on their own, given history as we know it to the 1860 election and Lincoln's - or any Republicans', frankly - inauguration.

Best,
 

RousseauX

Donor
After losing the ACW the US government wants to federalize everything as much as possible including the economy making secession economic suicide. The way it does so is to intervene more in the economy but it is still capitalist in the sense it nationalizes little of the economy but uses tax breaks and subsidies to encourage interstate commerce.

Ok, that sounds pretty good actually

Ideas I have: 1) spread out military bases as much as possible to the various states.
Ok, though this is kinda questionable because having forts on bases on the frontier or on the borders with CSA/Mexico/Canada make sense it really doesn't make sense to stick one in the middle of Pennsylvania.

2) Encourage railroads to build into virtually every small town in the US.
Is this actually practical? How important are small town of 100 people in the US anyway? Wouldn't just building ones to medium sized cities do the same thing?

3) Encourage big city newspapers to buy up smaller ones across state lines

So basically William Randolph Hearst

4) Encourage factory owners to build factories in more than one state
Any other ideas?
I'm not sure how practical this was in the 19th century.

For one, you are sacrificing a lot of economy of scale by spreading out your production and I'm not sure any reasonable amount of subsidies is going to cover that.

There's really good reasons why production of say, steel, gets focused in one area (natural resources, pooling of labor into one area etc), by making your factory owners build factories across state lines for political reasons naturally makes them less efficient.

The alternative is of course some sort Zaibatsu like conglomerate which owns enough % of the economy for their holdings to spread across state lines though that might not be such a good idea either.
 
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Yeah, that's pretty tough...good luck.

I don't see the rebels managing it on their own, given history as we know it to the 1860 election and Lincoln's - or any Republicans', frankly - inauguration.

Best,

From what I've learned of the CSA on this website, it appears that it could only survive the war and win its independence through the aid of European powers, and that its continued survival and expansion after the war would also depend heavily on the good will of European powers.

Is that correct?
 
I did answer it, you simply didn't like the answer. Of course it takes a lot of ifs. What part of "lottery odds" don't you understand? I agree that the odds are millions to one against but millions to one longshots sometimes happen. In any case do you think that the government would encourage the spread of radio when it is invented? I think even a short term existence of a peaceful CSA would have some effect.

Specifics matter.

A Confederacy free through Fabian defense and victory by exhaustion in 1864 is going to provoke a different response and require different conditions from a Confederacy that wins through some kind of 1862 masterstroke or an upset at Gettysburg. Just saying, "lottery odds" and going along with that doesn't give any sense of the context, social and material conditions, or other factors isn't givign enough to go on for a serious discussion.

And more to the point the entire concept of state capitalism is a pretty firmly 20th century one. Intervening in the economy was not unheard of in this period and it happened in different countries on different levels depending on the particular conditions; contrary to popular opinion the early to mid 19th century wasn't exactly some laissez-faire free for all capitalist paradise that is implied in popular narrative. Corporations, for example, were far more constrained and tightly regulated during the antebellum period leading up into the Civil War compared to the postbellum period and stuff like Homestead and the Trans-Continental Railroad shows some pretty serious government involvement in specific economic projects.

To put it in a nutshell: why the Union loses is important for explaining why they would be adopting an economic concept that doesn't even exist yet.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Pretty much...

From what I've learned of the CSA on this website, it appears that it could only survive the war and win its independence through the aid of European powers, and that its continued survival and expansion after the war would also depend heavily on the good will of European powers.

Is that correct?

Pretty much...

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Pretty much...

Specifics matter.

A Confederacy free through Fabian defense and victory by exhaustion in 1864 is going to provoke a different response and require different conditions from a Confederacy that wins through some kind of 1862 masterstroke or an upset at Gettysburg. Just saying, "lottery odds" and going along with that doesn't give any sense of the context, social and material conditions, or other factors isn't givign enough to go on for a serious discussion.

And more to the point the entire concept of state capitalism is a pretty firmly 20th century one. Intervening in the economy was not unheard of in this period and it happened in different countries on different levels depending on the particular conditions; contrary to popular opinion the early to mid 19th century wasn't exactly some laissez-faire free for all capitalist paradise that is implied in popular narrative. Corporations, for example, were far more constrained and tightly regulated during the antebellum period leading up into the Civil War compared to the postbellum period and stuff like Homestead and the Trans-Continental Railroad shows some pretty serious government involvement in specific economic projects.

To put it in a nutshell: why the Union loses is important for explaining why they would be adopting an economic concept that doesn't even exist yet.


Pretty much...;)

Clap, clap.

Best,
 
From what I've learned of the CSA on this website, it appears that it could only survive the war and win its independence through the aid of European powers, and that its continued survival and expansion after the war would also depend heavily on the good will of European powers.

Is that correct?

A lot of people seem to believe that, although there are a few really good TL's here that show that isn't the case.
 
Specifics matter.

A Confederacy free through Fabian defense and victory by exhaustion in 1864 is going to provoke a different response and require different conditions from a Confederacy that wins through some kind of 1862 masterstroke or an upset at Gettysburg. Just saying, "lottery odds" and going along with that doesn't give any sense of the context, social and material conditions, or other factors isn't givign enough to go on for a serious discussion.

And more to the point the entire concept of state capitalism is a pretty firmly 20th century one. Intervening in the economy was not unheard of in this period and it happened in different countries on different levels depending on the particular conditions; contrary to popular opinion the early to mid 19th century wasn't exactly some laissez-faire free for all capitalist paradise that is implied in popular narrative. Corporations, for example, were far more constrained and tightly regulated during the antebellum period leading up into the Civil War compared to the postbellum period and stuff like Homestead and the Trans-Continental Railroad shows some pretty serious government involvement in specific economic projects.

To put it in a nutshell: why the Union loses is important for explaining why they would be adopting an economic concept that doesn't even exist yet.
A Confederacy free through Fabian defense and victory by exhaustion in 1864 . Like I said earlier Johnston doesn't take Atlanta until after the election so Lincoln loses. Because if this the South fights harder and the North less hard. Little Mac takes over and is killed leaving Pendleton the President of the US. Pendleton withdraws from the war.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
I think we've gone around and around on this particular rock a few times

I disagree, if Sherman doesn't take Atlanta as fast Lincoln might well lose. After that the war is pretty much over with a CSA victory, particularly if Little Mac is dead.

I think we've gone around and around on this particular rock a few times, but dare I point out, even if Johnston (or Hood:rolleyes:) somehow hangs on to Atlanta through to November, the rebellion is still cut roughly in three, they've lost West Virginia and Tennesee, most of Louisiana and Arkansas, and significant chunks of every other "rebel" state, has all of two or three significant ports still under their control, and is only slightly less dysfunctional than Lopez' Paraguay was at the end?

But yeah, other than that, they're golden...

Cripes, Wilhelmine Germany was in better shape in 1918 and they still surrendered. As was Napoleonic France in 1815, for that matter.

Best,
 
I think we've gone around and around on this particular rock a few times, but dare I point out, even if Johnston (or Hood:rolleyes:) somehow hangs on to Atlanta through to November, the rebellion is still cut roughly in three, they've lost West Virginia and Tennesee, most of Louisiana and Arkansas, and significant chunks of every other "rebel" state, has all of two or three significant ports still under their control, and is only slightly less dysfunctional than Lopez' Paraguay was at the end?

But yeah, other than that, they're golden...

Cripes, Wilhelmine Germany was in better shape in 1918 and they still surrendered. As was Napoleonic France in 1815, for that matter.

Best,

It still "wins" if Pendleton sends the army back home. It would be a poor third world country barely hanging on life support but it would have still "won". The CSA government would have "won" a stinking burnt out ruin but won just the same.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Maybe, but I'm wondering, since you put it that way, if

It still "wins" if Pendleton sends the army back home. It would be a poor third world country barely hanging on life support but it would have still "won". The CSA government would have "won" a stinking burnt out ruin but won just the same.

Maybe, but I'm wondering, since you put it that way, if even a Pendleton "could" send the army home...

My guess is the most powerful man in the country in the event of a Pendleton presidency (somehow) is Lt. Gen. U.S. Grant...

Best,
 
A Confederacy free through Fabian defense and victory by exhaustion in 1864 . Like I said earlier Johnston doesn't take Atlanta until after the election so Lincoln loses. Because if this the South fights harder and the North less hard. Little Mac takes over and is killed leaving Pendleton the President of the US. Pendleton withdraws from the war.

Ok you've answered the first half.

Now you need to explain to me how the Union is going to invent out of whole cloth an economic model whose term was first coined by certain German Socialists in the late 1890s as a pejorative meant to denigrate theories of socialism they disagreed with, was used in a similar fashion among Marxists and particularly by Trotskyists during the 30s for disparaging Stalin's Soviet Union, and as the modern concept we are all actually familiar with it wasn't really articulated, understood, or truly implemented until at the earliest (if you're being generous) China under Deng Xiaoping starting in the 1980s.

Critical to the development of the modern Deng model, as that's usually what people refer to when they talk state capitalism though Putin's Russia also fits, was the existence of Stalinist Soviet central planning. As of 1864 there is literally no existing example of a planned economy anywhere in the world to inspire something like state capitalism or the demands facing Deng Xiaoping of dragging China from being a fractured mess in the wake of Mao's Cultural Revolution into being a major competitor in the industrialized world.

You might be able to pull off a Confederate victory, with great difficulty. I highly doubt an 1864 Fabian defense would do it.

There is simply no possible way the Union, or anyone else on the planet as of 1864, is going to be implementing an economic model that not only doesn't exist but furthermore is outside of their entire economic context, historical experience, and conception of society. It's not even a question of there being issues of it being accepted; there are simply no conditions existing for them to conceptualize an economic model whose form and function is one we'd recognize as comparable to what we call state capitalism.
 
Ok you've answered the first half.

Now you need to explain to me how the Union is going to invent out of whole cloth an economic model whose term was first coined by certain German Socialists in the late 1890s as a pejorative meant to denigrate theories of socialism they disagreed with, was used in a similar fashion among Marxists and particularly by Trotskyists during the 30s for disparaging Stalin's Soviet Union, and as the modern concept we are all actually familiar with it wasn't really articulated, understood, or truly implemented until at the earliest (if you're being generous) China under Deng Xiaoping starting in the 1980s.

Critical to the development of the modern Deng model, as that's usually what people refer to when they talk state capitalism though Putin's Russia also fits, was the existence of Stalinist Soviet central planning. As of 1864 there is literally no existing example of a planned economy anywhere in the world to inspire something like state capitalism or the demands facing Deng Xiaoping of dragging China from being a fractured mess in the wake of Mao's Cultural Revolution into being a major competitor in the industrialized world.

You might be able to pull off a Confederate victory, with great difficulty. I highly doubt an 1864 Fabian defense would do it.

There is simply no possible way the Union, or anyone else on the planet as of 1864, is going to be implementing an economic model that not only doesn't exist but furthermore is outside of their entire economic context, historical experience, and conception of society. It's not even a question of there being issues of it being accepted; there are simply no conditions existing for them to conceptualize an economic model whose form and function is one we'd recognize as comparable to what we call state capitalism.

You are being pedantic. Things exist sometimes before they are called something. Capitalism existed before Adam Smith and he didn't even give it a name, that was given later. State capitalism is basically government support for key private industries through subsidies, tax breaks and the like and THAT happened long before it was called anything.
 
you could argue the German Empire and Empire Of Japan had state capitalism of a sort, but these emerged out of vastly different social, political and historical formations than the US.
 
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