Did the Sahara cause Black-white racism and affect how we view race?

[Dinner]

All the Republicans required was for 50% of the population of the state to take the oath of loyalty and agree not to engage in rebellion. They also made politicians who engaged in rebellion ineligible to hold elected office. That's hardly "disenfranchising political enemies for as long as possible".

[Al B. Sure!]

All the Republicans required was for 50% of the population of the state to take the oath of loyalty and agree not to engage in rebellion. They also made politicians who engaged in rebellion ineligible to hold elected office. That's hardly "disenfranchising political enemies for as long as possible".

Convenient how they forget that Blacks were enfranchised during Reconstruction and became disenfranchised for the next 90 years because of the end of Reconstruction. Enfranchising the Confederate traitors meant disenfranchising Blacks.

[giblets]

The South Carolina legislature spent something like 6x what the pre-civil war one did, and that money did not come from the north. The south has taken a long time to recover from slavery, the fallout of the aftermath of the civilwar and slavery, and the aforementioned reconstruction, but it did ultimately happen, and they've done a great deal better of a job than pretty much all of the other former slave states.

It took a long time to recover from slavery because the South spent 90 years discriminating against blacks to prevent their advancement until the South was finally dragged kicking and screaming into modern civilization. It does not take a century to recover lost capital because of this wonderful thing called "incentives" where people make investments wherever the promised return is high.

And had the republican states in the north continued to support disenfranchising southerners they could have maintained the situation indefinitely. Again the problem had become republican competitiveness in the north that drove the end of the reconstruction.

Who were Republicans excluding from voting?

[Whoha]

Yeah and also kept Blacks enfranchised for as long as Reconstruction was occurring. And 'radical'?

self styled:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Republicans

It took a long time to recover from slavery because the South spent 90 years discriminating against blacks to prevent their advancement until the South was finally dragged kicking and screaming into modern civilization.

Investment from the north didn't really occur in earnest until the 20th century, though it did happen during jim crow. Likewise millions of southern workers, including several million of blacks were able to go north for higher wages and/or freedom. Morality is not economics, though the better on average economic policies tend to be more moral.

It does not take a century to recover lost capital because of this wonderful thing called "incentives" where people make investments wherever the promised return is high.

Of course, the north's incentive for destroying the southern plantation system and replacing it with the share cropping system was to prevent the plantation system from extracting the wealth it had for the south. The promised return was quite high, however it didn't do much for the south. Slavery sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the room as far as capital investment, and that was not replaced/recovered from for a long time.

[giblets]

Investment from the north didn't really occur in earnest until the 20th century, though it did happen during jim crow. Likewise millions of southern workers, including several million of blacks were able to go north for higher wages and/or freedom. Morality is not economics, though the better on average economic policies tend to be more moral.


Of course, the north's incentive for destroying the southern plantation system and replacing it with the share cropping system was to prevent the plantation system from extracting the wealth it had for the south. The promised return was quite high, however it didn't do much for the south. Slavery sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the room as far as capital investment, and that was not replaced/recovered from for a long time.

Slavery "sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the room as far as capital investment"? That sounds suspiciously like the "Junker fallacy".

[Whoha]

Slavery "sucked up a lot of the oxygen in the room as far as capital investment"? That sounds suspiciously like the "Junker fallacy".

Substitution of labor and capital. If the plantation owners had had to pay their workers with the economic concessions that they were able to extract from the northern economies, labor would have been more expensive and other capital would have been more attractive as far as investment.

[giblets]

Substitution of labor and capital. If the plantation owners had had to pay their workers with the economic concessions that they were able to extract from the northern economies, labor would have been more expensive and other capital would have been more attractive as far as investment.

The market price of a slave would depend on the net present value of its expected output over the course of their lifetime, minus whatever provisions they had to be given to keep them in working condition. In other words, acquiring slave labor is not necessarily cheaper than hiring free labor. It is for jobs that people don't want to do (like working in a gang labor system on a plantation) because free people would have to be offered a wage premium before they would accept such jobs. Slave labor does not remove the incentive for labor-saving innovations because employing slaves is not extraordinarily cheap relative to employing free laborers. Even if someone already owns a slave, using that slave instead of selling it has an opportunity cost.

[Al B. Sure!]

The market price of a slave would depend on the net present value of its expected output over the course of their lifetime, minus whatever provisions they had to be given to keep them in working condition.

Expected output over lifetime PLUS expected output of all descendants.

[giblets]

Expected output over lifetime PLUS expected output of all descendants.

Yes. At last you've figured out how to put your Finance education to good use. Now you just need a time machine.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yes. At last you've figured out how to put your Finance education to good use. Now you just need a time machine.

I found your exclusion, intentional or not, of descendants telling.

[Al B. Sure!]

I have to disagree somewhat with the notion that 'Othello' isn't about or concerned with Othello's race. We know that there were a number of Africans resident in London at the time Shakespeare was writing and acting ( even Henry VIII had an African trumpeter, John Blank) and that Elizabeth I had noticed their presence.

I noted the only racial references are in Iago's speech when he's trying to defame Othello. Black ram mounting his ewe.

Notice the Duke says by Othello's virtue, he is more fair than black, a poetic juxtaposition involving the connotations of negativity with dark colors (black heart, etc.) which is not necessarily racist. In fact, the Duke is effectively judging Othello by the high content of his character!

You're stretching things, Molly Bloom. Othello was not about race. Iago's early speech to Brabantio is the only 'racist' thing, and even that is descriptive more than anything.

He also says 'old' in 'old black ram'... Othello was an experienced general so was quite a bit older than the unmarried Desdemona. Does that line imply Othello was about an age disparity?

[Whoha]

The market price of a slave would depend on the net present value of its expected output over the course of their lifetime, minus whatever provisions they had to be given to keep them in working condition. In other words, acquiring slave labor is not necessarily cheaper than hiring free labor. It is for jobs that people don't want to do (like working in a gang labor system on a plantation) because free people would have to be offered a wage premium before they would accept such jobs. Slave labor does not remove the incentive for labor-saving innovations because employing slaves is not extraordinarily cheap relative to employing free laborers. Even if someone already owns a slave, using that slave instead of selling it has an opportunity cost.

No part of our economy exists in a vacuum, and reducing the punishment for for not investing in capital is what hurt the overall economy. Yes the incentive remained the same, but why take unnecessary risk when you are living the good life?

[Al B. Sure!]

Benjamin Isaac published 'The Invention Of Racism In Classical Antiquity' a few years ago:

Blacks lived as far north as York in Roman Britain. The "Lady of York" (http://reading.academia.edu/MaryLewi...tion_ethnicity) had African ancestry.

[giblets]

No part of our economy exists in a vacuum, and reducing the punishment for for not investing in capital is what hurt the overall economy. Yes the incentive remained the same, but why take unnecessary risk when you are living the good life?

Wealthy people are more risk averse? I doubt it. If they risk a piece of their wealth and it doesn't work out, they can still live the good life. And, of course, investments don't necessarily require funding from local sources. As you might already know a lot of the funding for building railroads in the U.S. came from Europe. If a wealthy planter decides to play it safe with his investments someone else can take the riskier ones.

[Dr Strangelove]

The reason economy of the South did not recover from the Civil War was British and French mercantilism, not the oppressive influence of the North. At the onset of the war the South had a bumper crop of cotton. The warehouses of Europe were full of cotton until late 1862. European investors began looking for alternate sources of cotton and tobacco. By this time Egypt had essentially become a colony of the British ermpire. 1863 was the worst year for the European textile industry, but by 1864 cotton from Egypt and Turkey largely made up for the lack of cotton from North America. By the end of the war, though the completion of the Suez canal was still 5 years away, a rail portage system was in place increasing the access of cotton from India. Throughout the late 19th century because of the enormous investment made in the canal by British and French investors France and the UK heavily subsidized shipping passing theough the canal making Indian cotton so cheap that American cotton could not compete. In fact it was the sales of cotton to northern textile manufacturers that kept the economy of the South from collapsing completely.