Historians of capitalism naturally see things in historically contingent ways. I think that’s fine. Economic historians don’t. I think that’s fine too. But a lot of useless arguments have come from that difference.

So if you’re defining its indispensability in a historically contingent way I think indispensability can be true. It was incredibly important to the growth of capitalism. If you’re defining indispensability in a “growth wouldn’t happen without it” way that’s definitely wrong.

This actually introduces another distinction: we acknowledge and say it’s allocatively inefficient—we would be further along in the progressive march of history without it—but it was a major economic force in its time that powered a lot of change in the economy and just socially.

Ok. I know he goofed on GDP accounting but I’m not sure how bad the rest of it is. I thought you were saying that of the two points I made allocative inefficiency was the correct one.

In fact if it weren’t compatible slavery wouldn’t have been so damned persistent.

So I’m reluctant to criticize what I’m not closely familiar with.

I haven’t read Baptist so I won’t rule on him specifically, particularly since I’ve seen so many people take true claims about the wealth that slavery created for Southern elites and reading that as an “indispensable engine” claim. It’s all shot through with bad faith.

But you’re missing the point. The whole point is allocative inefficiency and efficiency for the planters is completely compatible.

Is that a strong South or a weak South story? I don’t know. It’s certainly not really the King Cotton story.

My sense is people confuse two very different efficiency claims here: slavery was efficient for planters in the sense that any exploitation forces more output. But slavery was allocatively inefficient precisely because of this exploitation.

It’s not as if I discount social breakdown but the ultimate cause and the context for sure is going to be climate change if anything… which seems relevant for growing food. But it’s absent at least in what I’ve seen. Perhaps in the depths of the internet, I only catch the odd video here and there.

the next Dem admin needs to take a real big swing at reform immediately because the window is going to be limited and while there's a chance voters will punish you for it you know for a stone cold fact that they will punish you for going small

Right. So often this comes down to what people actually claim for it.

My two cents is I see excesses on both sides. We’re at the point where this is so suspect that just saying what I said rather than “they learned everything they knew” is bound to get someone upset who is primed to get upset.

But Whitman’s book is considered very good history. I think it comes down to whether someone uses Connor’s phrasing “learned everything they knew” vs. an accurate statement that the Nazis studied, discussed, and adapted American eugenics laws and Indian policy (which they did).