WI No Civil War How long does Slavery last?

While a majority of slaves were owned by a tiny number of planters, one third of all white families owned some slaves - in the 1-50 range. Slave ownership wasn't only widespread, but also the desire to own slaves apparently was strong (if only as a mark of social status).
One of the things that I read that struck me recently was that a study of the Army of Northern Virginia supports the above statement; i.e. one out of the three men that Lee commanded owned slaves.
I was probably a bit higher since several families owned slaves at a point then sold them away . The financial institutions handling the internal us slave trade was highly sophisticated (laws brokers traders insurance mortgages etc).
 
If I made an offer to many Americans today of a young slave girl of 17, above average looks who can bear children for $1 million to be a companion, I would get many takers.

But this has nothing to do with the initial subject. Most of the slaves in the South were not kept as the sex toys.
 
While a majority of slaves were owned by a tiny number of planters, one third of all white families owned some slaves - in the 1-50 range. Slave ownership wasn't only widespread, but also the desire to own slaves apparently was strong (if only as a mark of social status).
One of the things that I read that struck me recently was that a study of the Army of Northern Virginia supports the above statement; i.e. one out of the three men that Lee commanded owned slaves.
I don't see how that contradicts what I said- a minority owned slaves, and around half of that minority owned more than a few slaves. The idea that it'd be "cost-prohibitive" to buy a slave for a million dollars today ignores the fact that it was already cost-prohibitive to buy a slave in the Antebellum South. I'm not trying to say that slavery didn't shape the fabric of Antebellum society- it obviously did, but I'm saying that it's not like people weren't willing to invest in slavery, not only for financial but also social reasons (i.e. to ascend to the prestigious slaveholding class).
 
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While a majority of slaves were owned by a tiny number of planters, one third of all white families owned some slaves - in the 1-50 range. Slave ownership wasn't only widespread, but also the desire to own slaves apparently was strong (if only as a mark of social status).
One of the things that I read that struck me recently was that a study of the Army of Northern Virginia supports the above statement; i.e. one out of the three men that Lee commanded owned slaves.

And then you have to throw in nonslaveholders who were the younger brothers or grownup sons of slaveholders, and more generally all the young men on the make who hoped to be slaveholders later in life. and the overseers etc who were employed by slaveholders[1] . Add in all those merchants whose principal customers were slaveholders, and you've got a very big interest.

[1] These categories sometimes overlapped. On a visit to New Orleans, I was shown a big antebellum house which belonged to the overseer of a plantation. He had probably made quite a bit on commission, buying and selling slaves.
 
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Most of the slaves in the South were not kept as the sex toys.
Not specifically, but there were a loht of mulatto children running around. The mean African ancestry proportion of African Americans in the us today is only about 73%, significantly lower than what the subjects being tested belive. There were reasons for the one drop rule to put it mildly. Just look at Jefferson as an example.
 
You act like the slave-owning elite weren't that- an elite. The majority of slaves were owned by a small minority of the population. Besides which, I don't see why "the expense" of having to take care of a slave's children would even factor into it- either they'd be aborted/killed or sold off at a later date. You act like slave-owners thought of slaves as people, rather than chattel. Also, in a society where slavery is normalized (as it must be, to survive into the modern day), why wouldn't owning a slave be seen as prestigious? Southerners fought the Civil War for the dream of someday owning a slave, or better yet a plantation, even if the majority would never have a chance of having one. As distasteful as it is to think about, they would have thought of owning a slave as being as much of a status symbol as owning a yacht or a fancy car.

Look, I'm the last person on earth that would defend the planter rebels, but I think we have different ideas of what the arguements I'm trying to counter is. I was pointing out that modern sex trafficing, as it exists, can't be used as evidence to suggest that you've have a mass market of slaves bought by individuals for personal use in the late 1800's by folks who had trouble attracting a wife. I was pointing out that the circumstances of the modern trade; being a system done by groups who treat the women they're funneling into the system as a money-making mechanism vs. personal use and status symbol, and the differing circumstances of marriage back then mean you can't extrapolit between the two fairly.

While a majority of slaves were owned by a tiny number of planters, one third of all white families owned some slaves - in the 1-50 range. Slave ownership wasn't only widespread, but also the desire to own slaves apparently was strong (if only as a mark of social status).
One of the things that I read that struck me recently was that a study of the Army of Northern Virginia supports the above statement; i.e. one out of the three men that Lee commanded owned slaves.

True, very true. But the key factor is that these slaves were similar to buying a peice of farming equipment or beast of burden. Slaves were, indeed, economic assets to the owner, especially in an agricultural economy where mechanization was expensive and you were growing crops on marginal terrain where the benefits would be minimal or lacked dependable access to markets to turn your crops into currency and buy goods (since you can upkeep the slave in-kind)
 
This is a most interesting thread. Let me suggest the following way to look at the question. From a purely economic perspective (i.e. ignoring the profound immorality of slavery) the key issue in slavery is that you have a significant "Principal-Agent" problem. For those not familiar with this concept, the Principal-Agent problem Principal (owner of the slave) wants a certain amount of work. However, he can only imperfectly observe how hard the agent (the slave works). Unless he wants to watch every movement of the agent the agent may shirk; and if he watches every movement, he should probably just do the work himself Obviously slaves have a large incentive to "shirk", pretend to not understand instructions etc. The problem becomes even more acute in complex processes. Therefore, while there were slave artisans it was relatively rare. Instead slavery historically has been focused on jobs that have an easily observable ad measurable product such as digging ore out of mines (ancient world and Peru) or picking cotton. It is fairly straightforward to say pick X pounds of cotton or I will whip you. This suggests that slavery becomes more or less feasible depending upon technology employed to monitor workers. For example, the industrial processes employed in the North in the early 19th century were not conducive to slavery; therefore it died out. The monitoring technologies for the industrial processes employed in the South (producing cotton) were far more conducive to slavery. This model suggests a dark possibility. If slavery had survived into the early 20th century when industrial processes were broken down into discrete tasks that are easy to monitor (think Henry Ford) does slavery suddenly become viable in a modern capitalist economy? I would suggest there is a reasonably compelling argument for this outcome implying that slavery could be flourishing in the modern day.
 
This is a most interesting thread. Let me suggest the following way to look at the question. From a purely economic perspective (i.e. ignoring the profound immorality of slavery) the key issue in slavery is that you have a significant "Principal-Agent" problem. For those not familiar with this concept, the Principal-Agent problem Principal (owner of the slave) wants a certain amount of work. .

This problem is partly related to the need to guard slaves at all times. So the slave has to be regularly under observation. This also adds to the cost as although it is possible to use slaves to guard other slaves, in practice this is dangerous.

Doing some costings as a first level approximation to show you how this adds to the cost and I hope someone here can provide real figures. Say five slaves require I guard. A slave costs half what a freeman does and a guard earns about 25% more than a free man. The cost of a work unit for five workers is 5 x .5 +1.25 = 3.75 it is about 25% cheaper than using free men now consider that all you can do in bulk with them because of the Principal-Agent problem is very basic tasks. I think this is a significant part of the problem of the economics of slaves.

I remember reading after Stalin's death, a study was done on the economics of the Gulag, and it concluded that slave labour did not pay. Note I would love to see that report if anyone knows where it is, please tell me.
 
As distasteful as it is to think about, they would have thought of owning a slave as being as much of a status symbol as owning a yacht or a fancy car.

Many years ago, one of my elders, discussed with us what was it like doing housekeeping in Poland in the 1930s when she was a girl in a rich household when they did not have washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc. It was a huge job. Extra servants would be called in for clothes washing day and four or five people would be working a full day flat out, cleaning carpets required a specialist cleaner, etc and this was in a household that had a few full-time servants. To the rich, a slave would not be seen just as a status symbol but a necessity.
 
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