Moral outrage and the U.S. Civil War

[Aeson]

Aeson: Slaves were declining in value before the civil war
Me: Actually their value was increasing
Aeson: Just because their value was increasing doesn't mean it would have continued forever and also the people buying slaves were stupid and wasting their money and I know better than them blah blah blah

You are conflating value and price. I never said their value was increasing. That is simply a lie on your part to pretend I did. I said you were pretending an increase in price meant an increase in value AND that that you were pretending that increase was indefinite even in the face of very obvious (in hindsight) ways that slave's value was decreasing.

You are a moron who, instead of looking at what actually happened, has decided to take the pricing of a set of demonstrably stupid, racist investors, most of whom lost everything because of their lack of foresight ... as your ultimate guide to value. I do know better than them ... and sadly you (and apparently cockney and kentonio) don't.

[giblets]

It wasn't common knowledge in the 1850s that the civil war was going to happen. By that logic, anyone who invested in railroads in Georgia was a moron because those railroads were going to get torn up during Sherman's March.

[Sava]

You are conflating value and price. I never said their value was increasing. That is simply a lie on your part to pretend I did. I said you were pretending an increase in price meant an increase in value AND that that you were pretending that increase was indefinite even in the face of very obvious (in hindsight) ways that slave's value was decreasing.

val·ue
ˈvalyo͞o/
noun

" the monetary worth of something "
synonyms: [...] price

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/value

[Elok]

Price wouldn't necessarily equal value in this context. A field slave in his prime would take maybe fifteen years to "produce," during which time he would be largely unfit for real work, but still require food, clothing, and supervision. A certain amount would be lost to disease, given the squalid conditions they lived in, and a bit more to runaways and perhaps suicides. The finished product would inevitably suffer some losses as well; you can't put a man through brutal twelve- or fifteen-hour days, with intermittent whippings, day in and day out for years, without him breaking down. And slaves in their prime would seem to be the most likely to run away successfully. That price tag may well reflect sunk costs more than expected value. IIRC the actual slave trade wasn't done anymore by the 1860s, and it's not like you could put non-slaves to work in the system, so they had very little option but to pay what the seller demanded if they didn't happen to have a fit black person of their own to replace whichever one just died or bolted or got a career-ending injury.

[Sava]

I can always troll you instead

[giblets]

Price wouldn't necessarily equal value in this context. A field slave in his prime would take maybe fifteen years to "produce," during which time he would be largely unfit for real work, but still require food, clothing, and supervision. A certain amount would be lost to disease, given the squalid conditions they lived in, and a bit more to runaways and perhaps suicides. The finished product would inevitably suffer some losses as well; you can't put a man through brutal twelve- or fifteen-hour days, with intermittent whippings, day in and day out for years, without him breaking down. And slaves in their prime would seem to be the most likely to run away successfully. That price tag may well reflect sunk costs more than expected value. IIRC the actual slave trade wasn't done anymore by the 1860s, and it's not like you could put non-slaves to work in the system, so they had very little option but to pay what the seller demanded if they didn't happen to have a fit black person of their own to replace whichever one just died or bolted or got a career-ending injury.

The plantation system still had to compete with farmers outside of the system for land- so even in the context of growing cotton free labor and slave labor are still substitutes. Also the population of slaves grew a lot even after importing slaves from abroad was banned.

[Aeson]

It wasn't common knowledge in the 1850s that the civil war was going to happen.

It must be hard for you being stuck in the 1850s without the benefit of hindsight and without a valid moral/ethical position to judge from.

By that logic, anyone who invested in railroads in Georgia was a moron because those railroads were going to get torn up during Sherman's March.

Anyone who truly believes that those of African decent are not people deserving of the same freedom as the rest of us is stupid. You think slavers aren't stupid because you are also stupid.

Anyone who invests and loses money was demonstrably wrong in their assessment of value. It doesn't mean they are a moron. You however are a moron for ... in 2015 ... pretending that the pricing of slaves before the Civil War was accurately depicting their value, and for thinking that the value of slaves would not have diminished if somehow the Civil War had just magically not happened.

[Aeson]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/value

no one has paid you for your input here ... so it is worthless

[Elok]

Well, do you have a breakdown of the slave population by age and sex? And were those high prices you mentioned across-the-board, or was there a premium on fifteen-to-thirty men and everybody else was middling? Finally, was it possible/was it "done" to have a hybrid slave and free plantation? That is, if I'm a slave owner and one of my first-wavers from the gang system dies, can I feasibly advance a second-stringer, shove a free white laborer in his place and tell the guys with the whips not to hit that one, or something? Legitimately curious about the flexibility of the market here, for all I know you're right.

[giblets]

Well, do you have a breakdown of the slave population by age and sex? And were those high prices you mentioned across-the-board, or was there a premium on fifteen-to-thirty men and everybody else was middling? Finally, was it possible/was it "done" to have a hybrid slave and free plantation? That is, if I'm a slave owner and one of my first-wavers from the gang system dies, can I feasibly advance a second-stringer, shove a free white laborer in his place and tell the guys with the whips not to hit that one, or something? Legitimately curious about the flexibility of the market here, for all I know you're right.

I don't see any reason why a plantation couldn't have leased some of its land to independent farmers if they somehow weren't making money off of making slaves grow and pick crops.

[giblets]

It must be hard for you being stuck in the 1850s without the benefit of hindsight and without a valid moral/ethical position to judge from.



Anyone who truly believes that those of African decent are not people is stupid. You think they aren't stupid because you are also stupid.

Anyone who invests and loses money was demonstrably wrong in their assessment of value. It doesn't mean they are a moron. You however are a moron for ... in 2015 ... pretending that the pricing of slaves before the Civil War was accurately depicting their value, and for thinking that the value of slaves would not have diminished if somehow the Civil War had just magically not happened.

Morality and financial profitability are obviously different things, if someone is a racist that doesn't mean they are stupid with money. And anyone can say with hindsight that a bad investment was bad- you can say with hindsight that houses were generally not a good investment in the US in 2005, but were a decent investment in Australia in 2005. That's trivial. People who bought slaves in the 1850s couldn't predict future political events but they did have knowledge about how much it costs to feed, house and supervise slaves and how much the product of their labor was worth. I'm willing to bet they knew more about those things than you.

[Sava]

I was taught that people knew a civil war was coming as early as 1840's. I think it was a class or discussion about political cartoons.


By the late 1850's for sure, everyone knew war was on the horizon... was just a question of when

It's not like all of a sudden people were shocked. Slavery was a boil on America's ass since the beginning. I recall that even some of the founder's were predicting a conflict over slavery.

but I'm no MrFun, so I wouldn't know for sure

[Aeson]

Morality and financial profitability are obviously different things, if someone is a racist that doesn't mean they are stupid with money. And anyone can say with hindsight that a bad investment was bad- you can say with hindsight that houses were generally not a good investment in the US in 2005, but were a decent investment in Australia in 2005. That's trivial. People who bought slaves in the 1850s couldn't predict future political events but they did have knowledge about how much it costs to feed, house and supervise slaves and how much the product of their labor was worth. I'm willing to bet they knew more about those things than you.

You are in 2015 claiming their pricing was right. It demonstrably was wrong. You're a moron.

[giblets]

You are in 2015 claiming their pricing was right. It demonstrably was wrong. You're a moron.

I'm not claiming their pricing took the civil war into account.

[Elok]

I don't see any reason why a plantation couldn't have leased some of its land to independent farmers if they somehow weren't making money off of making slaves grow and pick crops.

The difficulty I'm seeing is that the system as you described it earlier didn't sound like it had a lot of flexibility built in. Slaves worked the land in waves of gangs. If you lease a hunk of land out to independent farmers, the load of slaves who worked it previously are going to be doing bupkus. There's only so much work to be done per acre; you can't double productivity on a plot by doubling the slaves. You could manumit them, but that would involve writing off substantial sunk costs. I can believe it would be workable over the long term--gradually easing back and selling the useless slaves--assuming it wasn't done by everybody at once, which would probably lead to some sort of market crash.

This is assuming there are independent farmers in the area with the cash to lease said land and the laborers to tend to it. If plantations were massive and free farms tended to be small and family-run, was this the case?