[jeffersondem]

“The manufacturer in Britain probably did end up paying the cost of the shipping, but not everything he paid ended up in the cotton planter's pocket, even apart from the money for shippers and insurance companies.”

Right. That's the way I think about it. Even when the seller on ebay announces “free shipping” I don't believe it. It is my understanding the seller builds the shipping cost into the price of the product and the consumer pays for it.

When I read your earlier post (“Learn a little economics. Cotton planters spent the money they “earned” to buy things and to send their cotton to market.”) I began to wonder if there was a new economic model to learn - one where producers continuously make and deliver products without recovering their costs.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: " I began to wonder if there was a new economic model to learn - one where producers continuously make and deliver products without recovering their costs."

Speaking of economic models, I'd like to mention something key to this whole conversation: 1860 Deep South wealth.
This comes from James Huston's 2003 book, "Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property Rights and the Economic Origins of the Civil War"

His more interesting statistics include: while 1860 average Southern incomes were only slightly higher than average Northern incomes, that counts everybody.
But if you look at just Deep Cotton South white wealth compared to average Northern wealth, the disparity is striking.
Including the value of their slaves, average Deep South whites had three times the wealth of average Northerners in states like Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

So when our FRiends DiogenesLamp and jeffersondem argue that Civil War was all about economics, there are such numbers to point at.
But I don't think they make the case for an "oppressed South" that Lost Causers wish us to believe.