[Christian_Capitalist]

Absolutely and totally wrong. Every economist who has studied this has concluded that slaves had an inherent property value far, far above their labor value. This is not in debate among the economic historians who have written on this. Only goofballs like DiLorenzo still try to make this silly argument.

Nope. You're incorrect. The value of the expected labor (in terms of the value of crop production) derived was the primary determinant of what price slave-holders were willing to pay.

When planters purchased slaves the prices they were willing to pay presumably reflected their expectations about the value of the labor that the slave could be anticipated to supply in the future less the costs of maintaining the slave8. Although slaves were employed in many activities, by far the most important of these was rice cultivation. Thus it seems reasonable to suppose that the derived demand for slave labor in the production of rice was the primary factor in regional demand for slaves. The price of rice exports at Charleston provides a good index of the strength of demand for this crop, and consequently of the value of slaves to rice producers9...

The reduced form equations show that the primary determinant of slave prices was the price of rice. Evaluated at the sample means, the elasticity of slave prices with respect to the price of rice was 0.97, indicating that a one percent increase in rice prices would cause an increase of 0.97 percent in slave prices. In the quantity equation, the strongest effect was due to the trend variable. But the coefficient on rice prices was also positive and statistically significant at the 10 percent level.

Slave Prices and The Economy of the Lower South, 1722-1809

Peter C. Mancall
University of Kansas

Joshua L. Rosenbloom
University of Kansas and NBER

Thomas Weiss
University of Kansas and NBER

These are professional economists, supporting my argument, NOT named DiLorenzo -- and you've cited no evidence in support of your argument.

The value of the crops which could be produced with slave labor, determined the value of that labor to a slaveholder, which determined the price he was willing to pay.

This put an "upward bound" on the top prices for slaves, which ensured that Compensated Emancipation succeeded in the other Western nations where it was attempted.

[LS]

Nope. I know Weiss, and he also has shown that manufacturing profits GREATLY exceeded those of slave agriculture, and can't explain why. The fact is, slavery was about a lot more than profits. It was about power. That's why Weiss's arguments generally aren't considered to be very relevant.

Yasuba proved this; Fogel and Engerman proved this; we already have preliminary evidence from a massive study of NO slave prices from data sources that no one has seen that confirm this.

Again, you might find one or two---you can still find economists who think that FDR didn't spend enough, and you certainly know the "on the other hand" comment about RR and economists---but the vast majority (see the discussion in Atack and Passell, "New Economic View of American History") does not support your view.

The notion that you can sell off a scarce good---no matter what that good's function---and NOT drive up prices on all remaining similar goods defies economic logic. But when those goods are inherently imbued with power/oppression, then it isn't even close. Slave labor was very marginally profitable over free labor, unprofitable compared to manufacturing, but tremendously profitable as a source of power, especially when subsidized by the state. And even Weiss's paper does not take into account the hidden value of government subsidies to slavery when determining profitability.