Lost Or Unrecognized Multi-National Economic Principles And Slavery

Robert L. Kocher ^ | October 27, 2002 | Robert L. Kocher

[RLK]

Wait a second! You mean to tell me that the statement, "[t]he North was jealous of Southern prosperity..." is either a myth or propaganda?

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Most people think I am pure German because of my temperament and last name. And I look at mayself as a high tech displaced Amishman. In fact, my Mother was Southern Scotch-Irish and that side of the family can be traced at least to the 1700s. My great grandfather or granduncle owned a sizable proportion of the state of Alabama. It was said one could ride for two and one half days without leaving his land. There was probably only room for 20 men like him in the state. He was a virtual King. When he died his estate was still worth

millions even after the civil war. My old cantankerous grand-aunt refused to claim the estate so it reverted to the state of Alabama as unclaimed property..

Historians and vacationers go down there and see those plantation houses and slave quarters and believe that's what the South was. That's what the South was for about one or two percent of the population. The average southerner had very little. It's just a fact.

[rdb3]

I don't doubt you a bit, RLK. Actually, I was pointing out something to another poster. Well, "pointing out" is too charitable.

[RLK]

This is not an article, it is a book... I would love to read it but I don't have enough paper in my printer to print it out... People need to make a point in 3-5 pages on this forum or it will not be read...

---------------------------->p> It's close to 35 pages long. There are things in this world that can neither be explained nor learned in 30 second sound bites.

[rdb3]

When he died his estate was still worth millions even after the civil war. My old cantankerous grand-aunt refused to claim the estate so it reverted to the state of Alabama as unclaimed property..

You're serious? We have something extremely comparible in my family, only the land wasn't sold or released. My great-great grandfather received a sizeable portion of land from his former slaveowner. This man's progeny actually helped to keep this land in my great-great grandfather's name.

The land was apportioned among several children after his death. The portion my great-grandfather owned was leased to cotton and rice farmers throughout the years. He was a barber.

My grandfather, rdb1 (if you will) who was a barber as well, continued to lease this land that he became owner over. Of course, it was far smaller than the original. At any rate, he set his will to grant portions of this land to his children and grandchildren. He died before I was born. Nevertheless, I still own 275 acres of land in eastern Arkansas thanks to him. When rdb2 goes to glory, this "estate" will grow again.

So, as you can see, when I say that I'm extremely for the end of the death-tax I speak from verifiable knowledge. If these taxes had not been paid over the years, there's no way this land would have came to me 100+ years after the fact.

Looking at what you're written here, it stands to reason that I'd never let these 275 acres go. It is a hedge, albeit small, that is nice to hold. America's financial future is uncertain, especially for those of us in my field.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Your citations of Mulally's comments remind me of some pompous old Southern Aristocrat nut case going on about infant baptism, predestination, being a direct descendent of King Charles I and Charlemagne, the specialness and superiority of Southern culture and the absolute necessity of the "peculiar institution" due to the uniquely unique historical, political, and social development of the South, all being pre-ordained by God Himself as evidenced by the unique Southern climate and virtuous temperment of the noble descendents of Cavaliers who He determined would settle the South.

[RLK]

Excellent in all except offering some pathway out of our impending economic doom.

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The pathway out is going to be through finding some rock-hard intelligent tough political leadership who understands what is said here and explains it to the American people. If such a person, or a political party, does so the percentage of eligible voters going to the polls will rise and the ordinary people who have been taking an economic beating will flock to him out of desperation. Dimwit Bush and his co-presidente Fox of Mexico are the problem, not the solution. The Democratic party is crusading on abortions and homosexuality. The country is ripe for, and needs, intelligent disciplined leadership.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Or, as characterized in the article:

"The impression given by Mulally's statements is one of preaching some kind of quasi-religious and/or ideological crusade into which he incorporates diffuse hatred of the industrialized world, particularly America, and wants to humiliate and punish America for what are interpreted as its sins."

A comparison with Lunatic Southern Demagoguery waxing ecstatic about the virtues of slavery and regaling the evils of wage labor begs to be made.

[RLK]

Cavaliers--

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Jesus Christ you have a way with words. I searched my mind for days trying to find a word to express a thought, and yu finally came up with it here. That's what the Southern cause and the army was. It was cavaliers who looked none too closely at what they were defending.

[Red Jones]

I have a practical solution to propose. I first got this idea from Dick Gephardt in 1984 when Gephardt ran for president. He touted this idea.

We should have tariffs on a sliding scale. A law passed in congress should govern the process. When we have a trading relationship with a nation where they buy approximately the same quantity of goods and services from us as we buy from them, then we should not tax that trade relationship at all and tariffs should be zero on their products. But if they export to us just 50% more than we export to them, then we should put some kind of a tariff on their products. If they export twice to us what we export to them, then we should put on a much bigger tariff for that country, etc. For countries like China that export to us 5 times what we export to them, then in my mind the tariff should be 100% or even 200%.

Under these conditions the Chinese would immediately find American products to buy en masse. They would adjust their expectations and play under the new rules in order to develop their economy.

If we pursued this type of a policy, then the american economy would be buffered from the fallout. The less competitive manufacturers would still fail, but not nearly so many of them. We would be able to keep manufacturing industry here. We need this for both military and economic security.

I also think we should slap tariffs on countries that don't meet what we consider to be reasonable human rights policies. A Vietnam or a China that arrest people for possessing bibles should face a tariff just for that. Saudi Arabia that doesn't allow christians to meet should get the same.

We should re-adjust these tarrifs once a year. Then we should give all the money to the citizens in the form of tax rebates, a one time payment that is proportional to the amount of payroll taxes that the individual paid.

[RLK]

What you are talking about may be necessary.

The first step is to understand the seriousness and inevitability of what is happening on our current course. In 15 years this nation will be a third world country with a collapsed economy at the rate we are going. We are becoming irrelevant.

[driftless]

I've had that same thought too about robots and machines taking over. But the more machines you create, the more there are things that break down...and have to be repaired. People have to be willing to adapt to changing circumstances...trite but true.

[sixmil]

and I meant to add: ... and we are killing the engineering field in the US with the H1B program. When the only people who add value are engineers and designers, and they are mostly from Asia, what happens to America then?

Great point. To me the issues of "free" trade (tariff-free trade) and the import of cheap labor are close cousins. Kind of like cheap labor and cheap products in, jobs and money out. The sad part is that most repubs support both, whereas the dems are at least starting to grumble about the export of jobs. What not many besides RLK are able to see is that they are both forms of international welfare collected by Uncle Sam under the penalty of law.

[sixmil]

We should have tariffs on a sliding scale. A law passed in congress should govern the process. When we have a trading relationship with a nation where they buy approximately the same quantity of goods and services from us as we buy from them, then we should not tax that trade relationship at all and tariffs should be zero on their products. But if they export to us just 50% more than we export to them, then we should put some kind of a tariff on their products. If they export twice to us what we export to them, then we should put on a much bigger tariff for that country, etc. For countries like China that export to us 5 times what we export to them, then in my mind the tariff should be 100% or even 200%.

I have been proposing something similar for a while now, although someone likely said it first. There are a couple problems with Gephardt's plan, asuuming he still supports it. You can not look at trade simply between two countries since it is too easy to re-export from another country to get around the rules. You have to look at trade as us and everyone else. Also, I don't think it makes any sense to drop tariffs when trade balances out to zero. In fact, I think you would encourage it to race away from zero again. The simplest thing to do is float a single tariff rate up until trade is balanced, meanwhile cutting income taxes as tariff revenues flow in. At this point we will have truely free trade with all the benefits and none of the penalties. There will also be some tangential benefits: increased security now that all incoming freight is inspected to levy tariffs and reduction or elimination of income taxes.

[RLK]

I suspect the tarrif system should be based on the functional equivalen worth of the machinery or other product. That way circuitous routs of entry would be negated.

[snopercod]

Interesting. I read the first half, and saved the second to disc to read later.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

"The pathway out is going to be through finding some rock-hard intelligent tough political leadership who understands what is said here and explains it to the American people."

So I guess we're screwed. If I know anything at all, I know that that's not going to happen.

This is a fine article, Robert. I copied it to send to my kids. As I was working my way through it, I would come across statements that really hit home. Your points on Chinese industry are excellent.

One of my oldest friends owns an electro-mechanical stamping company. He is a driven perfectionist who is still hands on in the tool room. Recently he returned from a trip to mainland China. I never saw him defeated before, but he told me that despite what we are told, the chinese factories had the latest, greatest and best equipment he had ever seen and that their engineers were both superb and plentiful.

He came to realize that he was doomed. By reason of his personal ability and the excellence of his staff, he could continue to match or slightly exceed the quality of their products, but given that they had no equivelent overhead, they could and would simply slash their prices until he was out of business. My friend is tough-minded and will continue to compete as long as he draws breath, but his business is living on borrowed time.

He used to be a staunch republican.

For all the gravity of this article, you still manage to get me chuckling over your one-line zingers.

"...they possess a remarkable knack for being undisturbed about the fact that the rest of us must go on living in this country after they are done messing around with it."

Ouch!

[philman_36]

In 1860, out of a Southern population of 9,000,000 people, 4,000,000 were slaves.
These are figures for all States, not just Southern States.
AGGR. NO. OF SLAVES
Total...3,950,546
Population of the United States (1860)

Total 1860 Population

Total Free Population	27,489,561
Total Slave Population	3,953,760
Grand Total	31,443,321

Source: "The Civil War and Reconstruction" by Randall and Donald (Their source was U.S. Census, 1860, Population, pp. 598-599)
Where did you get your population figures from?

[philman_36]

Sorry Red. Post 37 should be to you RLK.

[x]

Great article but way too long for a casual read. Just seeing how much was left was enough to make me sigh or shudder. While I'm grateful for the article, a synopsis or summary would be helpful.

Two sidelights, though. Hinton Rowan Helper advanced many of the arguments expressed here about slavery in his 1857 book, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. His book was banned in many states and regarded as a provocation not far short of John Brown's.

In 1974, Fogel and Engelman's perverse book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, advanced the revisionist argument that slavery was profitable. It was a very controversial, counterintuitive argument that provoked endless discussion, as did Fogel's earlier book on Railroads and American Economic Growth.

It seems obvious to all that slavery is indeed incompatible with advanced economic development. A servile population, denied mobility and the proceeds of its own increased productivity clearly seems to be incompatible with a dynamic, high technology economy. But the point in the course of economic development at which this becomes true is unclear. And it's worth noting that there has been some debate about the economic success of slavery.

[RLK]

In 1860, out of a Southern population of 9,000,000 people, 4,000,000 were slaves. These are figures for all States, not just Southern States. AGGR. NO. OF SLAVES Total...3,950,546

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So where would you go to find those slaves, to Rhode Island? You'd go to the states in the South where slavery was legal and encouraged.