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08-12-2015, 12:47 PM
(08-12-2015, 06:45 AM)BelieveIn308 Wrote:In the US where labor is expensive and the initial cost of mechanization therefore isn't as prohibitive. In China where labor is cheap the factory owners resist it. In my last job I visited factories in China where they made staplers and hole punches. It looked more like 1913 than 2013. The factory owners, very well off by the way, were willing to work with my company in any way to reduce costs as long as they didn't have to modernize or automate. If they needed more capacity they added more workers. They fed and housed them too.(08-11-2015, 11:02 PM)AcilletaM Wrote:(08-11-2015, 11:09 AM)BelieveIn308 Wrote: I disagree. Slavery was a PART of the reason for the Civil War. Specifically the expansion of slavery. Also the abolish movement was a factor. You are correct however, in that the cotton gin was making slavery economically unviable. That is why the British abolished it. I would say slavery was a bigger deal in the North than the South clearly. A study of politics in the South and such leaders as "States Rights" Gist (his actual given name) prove that it was about states rights more than anything, and not willing to be told what to do by northern states. Interestingly enough the Civil War didn't prove or disprove a states right to leave the Union. It maintained the union by force of arms. It would be an interesting court case if a state filed suit to leave the Union, and let the SCOTUS decide the issue.
I thought slavery was dying until the invention of the cotton gin not because of it. Less slaves may have been needed but plantations would have continued to grow in size because the owners would have been able to handle more with the slaves they had. Not unlike what has happened with farms today. Slavery alone did not scale well but slavery + mechanization does.
My point was that Slavery was becoming an uneconomic model in the South. Just as it had in England, which is why it died off. There was no longer any cost benefit to it. The cotton Gin lowered the price of cotton by flooding the markets, thus ending the economic reason for slaves in the South. Slavery would have ended within 20 years anyway for purely economic reasons, as it had in much of the rest of the world. Slaves were expensive, and cost a lot to feed, house train, etc.
Much like mechanization today has reduced the need for labor.
(08-12-2015, 06:45 AM)BelieveIn308 Wrote:
My point was that Slavery was becoming an uneconomic model in the South. Just as it had in England, which is why it died off. There was no longer any cost benefit to it. The cotton Gin lowered the price of cotton by flooding the markets, thus ending the economic reason for slaves in the South. Slavery would have ended within 20 years anyway for purely economic reasons, as it had in much of the rest of the world. Slaves were expensive, and cost a lot to feed, house train, etc.
Much like mechanization today has reduced the need for labor.In the US where labor is expensive and the initial cost of mechanization therefore isn't as prohibitive. In China where labor is cheap the factory owners resist it. In my last job I visited factories in China where they made staplers and hole punches. It looked more like 1913 than 2013. The factory owners, very well off by the way, were willing to work with my company in any way to reduce costs as long as they didn't have to modernize or automate. If they needed more capacity they added more workers. They fed and housed them too.
(08-11-2015, 11:02 PM)AcilletaM Wrote:(08-11-2015, 11:09 AM)BelieveIn308 Wrote: I disagree. Slavery was a PART of the reason for the Civil War. Specifically the expansion of slavery. Also the abolish movement was a factor. You are correct however, in that the cotton gin was making slavery economically unviable. That is why the British abolished it. I would say slavery was a bigger deal in the North than the South clearly. A study of politics in the South and such leaders as "States Rights" Gist (his actual given name) prove that it was about states rights more than anything, and not willing to be told what to do by northern states. Interestingly enough the Civil War didn't prove or disprove a states right to leave the Union. It maintained the union by force of arms. It would be an interesting court case if a state filed suit to leave the Union, and let the SCOTUS decide the issue.
I thought slavery was dying until the invention of the cotton gin not because of it. Less slaves may have been needed but plantations would have continued to grow in size because the owners would have been able to handle more with the slaves they had. Not unlike what has happened with farms today. Slavery alone did not scale well but slavery + mechanization does.
My point was that Slavery was becoming an uneconomic model in the South. Just as it had in England, which is why it died off. There was no longer any cost benefit to it. The cotton Gin lowered the price of cotton by flooding the markets, thus ending the economic reason for slaves in the South. Slavery would have ended within 20 years anyway for purely economic reasons, as it had in much of the rest of the world. Slaves were expensive, and cost a lot to feed, house train, etc.
Much like mechanization today has reduced the need for labor.In the US where labor is expensive and the initial cost of mechanization therefore isn't as prohibitive. In China where labor is cheap the factory owners resist it. In my last job I visited factories in China where they made staplers and hole punches. It looked more like 1913 than 2013. The factory owners, very well off by the way, were willing to work with my company in any way to reduce costs as long as they didn't have to modernize or automate. If they needed more capacity they added more workers. They fed and housed them too.