[Politics_Observer]

@Kaiserschmarrn


So, I have gotten some school work done and I still have more but I'll take a bit of break here and answer. Here is the problem with you bringing up your statistic of 1835 GDP or 1850 GDP as it relates to cotton. Here you stated:

The 5% of GDP is in the Oakes document, i.e. the first quote in my previous post. I'll re-quote:

You didn't make clear where you were quoting from as you had the Davis04.pdf download hyperlinked in your post on one hand and a link to Cambridge URL on the other hand. So it was difficult to ascertain as to which source you were getting your information from and what information went with what source. That was a bit confusing the way you wrote your post and presented your sources.

but cotton only constituted 5% of GDP in 1835 (see 3rd para in the quote below), and around 20% of industrial production in 1850 (page 13).

This was your attempt counter a portion of my claim here when I stated the following:

The textile industry in the US and in the Northern US like New York City were ENTIRELY dependent upon the southern US for cotton. Cheap plentiful land in the south along with soil necessary to grow cotton and the slave labor required to work that land produced ALOT of millionaires who were white slave owners in the American south.

The fact that cotton could invariably could have been 5% of GDP in 1835 as your source states (and I found it by using the vi editor on my Linux partition of my triple boot laptop computer, that was ALOT of pages to have to go through to have to find that one little tiny quote, but fortunately, I am good with a vi editor on Linux Ubuntu and was able to easily find it utilizing that editor) doesn't refute my claim that "the textile industry in the US and in the Northern US like New York City were ENTIRELY dependent upon the southern US for cotton. Cheap plentiful land in the south along with soil necessary to grow cotton and the slave labor required to work that land produced ALOT of millionaires who were white slave owners in the American south."

That statistic that you quoted from your source does NOT refute that assertion in any way whatsoever. Furthermore you stated the following:

I'm trying to give you some perspective by showing what slave labour contributed compared to the rest of the economy, primarily in the US because that was your original claim. To recap, cotton production was around 5% of GDP in 1835, cotton exports constituted less than 5% of GDP, all exports represented less the 10% of total income, textiles were around 20% of industrial production by 1850, and the profits from cotton exports didn't contribute much to industrial capital formation. Now, of course this contributed to economic development and industrialisation in the US to some extent, but as should hopefully be obvious from the numbers the remaining sectors did too and, together, much more so. Hence why I said in my last post:

Slave labour wasn't key any more than the farmers who massively improved their productivity without slaves, the former peasants and workers who worked in factories and on infrastructure, the engineers and scientists with their inventions and improvements, the merchants and capitalists and their investments, etc. That is to say, it was one factor among many that fuelled the industrial revolution.

You have so far failed to address this.

I don't know if I completely agree with all your conclusions and I am unsure if these exact statistics are accurate that you got from your source. Do you have a source from well a respected economic publication to back up the accuracy of these statistics you are presenting ? It's a fair request I am making in asking you to back up those statistics up from a well respected and scholarly economic publication that has accurate information from that time period. I thought I did address my last point in my previous point, but I will add a bit more information in case I didn't:

Now, the value of cotton: Slave-produced cotton “brought commercial ascendancy to New York City, was the driving force for territorial expansion in the Old Southwest and fostered trade between Europe and the United States,” according to Gene Dattel. In fact, cotton productivity, no doubt due to the sharecropping system that replaced slavery, remained central to the American economy for a very long time: “Cotton was the leading American export from 1803 to 1937.”

What did cotton production and slavery have to do with Great Britain? The figures are astonishing. As Dattel explains: “Britain, the most powerful nation in the world, relied on slave-produced American cotton for over 80 per cent of its essential industrial raw material. English textile mills accounted for 40 percent of Britain’s exports. One-fifth of Britain’s twenty-two million people were directly or indirectly involved with cotton textiles.”

Now, Henry Louis Gates doesn't give these sort of economic statistics that you are throwing out there but he is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University as you can read about him here: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americ ... about-hlg/ . This lends the information I am posting to you some very strong credibility given that my information comes from him. It also the addresses the point you asked me to address too. Here is some additional information on Henry Louis:

Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge. He received a B.A. in English Language and Literature, summa cum laude, from Yale University in 1973. Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell and Duke Universities. Professor Gates has received 51 honorary degrees, as well as a 1981 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award,” the 1993 George Polk Award for Social Commentary and the 2008 Ralph Lowell Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s highest award. In addition, Professor Gates was named one of Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans” in 1997, one of Ebony magazine’s “100 Most Influential Black Americans” in 2005 and to Ebony’s “Power 150” list for 2009. In 2013, he was named to AARP’s list of The “Influentials”: 50 Over 50. He received a National Humanities Medal in 1998, and in 1999 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2006, he was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution after tracing his lineage to John Redman, a Free Negro who fought in the Revolutionary War.

That being said, I think that addresses what you asked in your last post for me to address. Britain and the entire US were heavily dependent on the cheap cotton that the slave labor from the American south produced. Slavery and the preservation of slavery and the fact that "cotton was king" was THE reason for the cause of the American Civil War. And it was that slavery of African Americans that has had negative legacy that is felt today.


References-

Gates, Jr, Henry L. "The Scholars and Production Teams of PBS." The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-america ... about-hlg/. Accessed 9 July 2019.

Gates, Henry L. "The Role Cotton Played in the 1800s Economy | African American History Blog." The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, 19 Sept. 2013, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-america ... tton-king/. Accessed 9 July 2019.

[BigSteve]

Serious question to military people. What would happen to you , (if anything) if you were openly against celebrating the American flag?

I seem to recall an incident a couple years ago, in which a black female soldier chose not to honor the Flag while in uniform.

She was given an "OTH" (other than honorable) discharge.

I've been trying to find the story. If I can I'll post a link...

[Politics_Observer]

@BigSteve

I seem to recall an incident a couple years ago, in which a black female soldier chose not to honor the Flag while in uniform.

She was given an "OTH" (other than honorable) discharge.

I've been trying to find the story. If I can I'll post a link...

Yeah, their was an African American navy sailor who decided not to honor the flag while in uniform and she was given an honorable but she was quickly booted out. I was surprised she got an honorable. The guys who smoked hashish in Afghanistan in my unit at the very least got an OTH but could have also gotten a Bad Conduct Discharge. The navy sailor who decided not to honor the flag while in uniform got off too light in my opinion. However, given that you mentioned a female soldier (and I would assume she was in the Army) got an OTH is not exactly surprising but I think failure to honor the flag in uniform more accurately warrants a Bad Conduct Discharge. Even with OTH you don't get education benefits or veterans preference for federal jobs plus you have no protections under the law that is designed to protect veterans from discrimination. We have army veterans from some of the recent wars who go up trying to get the nature of their discharge changed and even argue on grounds of PTSD but the Army grants no mercy to them and will not change the nature of their negative discharge. The army tells them, "PTSD is no excuse."

[BigSteve]

I also believe there's a current situation with a black female sailor in Pensacola who protested and isn't getting kicked out...

[Politics_Observer]

@BigSteve

I also believe there's a current situation with a black female sailor in Pensacola who protested and isn't getting kicked out...

If she was in the Army, she would probably be getting kicked out with at least an OTH and I say that because I know how the Army is. Navy is a more progressive service where the Army is a more conservative service and really big on the rules and enforcing consequences for breaking the rules.

[BigSteve]

@BigSteve



If she was in the Army, she would probably be getting kicked out with at least an OTH and I say that because I know how the Army is. Navy is a more progressive service where the Army is a more conservative service and really big on the rules and enforcing consequences for breaking the rules.

The first case I mentioned involved a sailor.

The UCMJ makes no distinction between services...

[Kaiserschmarrn]

So, I have gotten some school work done and I still have more but I'll take a bit of break here and answer.

I'm quite happy to wait for your response. I know it's addictive but don't let this get in the way of your school work.

This was your attempt counter a portion of my claim here when I stated the following:

The fact that cotton could invariably could have been 5% of GDP in 1835 as your source states (and I found it by using the vi editor on my Linux partition of my triple boot laptop computer, that was ALOT of pages to have to go through to have to find that one little tiny quote, but fortunately, I am good with a vi editor on Linux Ubuntu and was able to easily find it utilizing that editor) doesn't refute my claim that "the textile industry in the US and in the Northern US like New York City were ENTIRELY dependent upon the southern US for cotton. Cheap plentiful land in the south along with soil necessary to grow cotton and the slave labor required to work that land produced ALOT of millionaires who were white slave owners in the American south."

That statistic that you quoted from your source does NOT refute that assertion in any way whatsoever.

I didn't need to refute this to make one of my points that, while cotton was an important raw material, the economy comprised much more than the cotton (and textile) industry. But apart from that, we can also talk about the cotton industry itself. Slaves obviously significantly contributed to it by working on the plantations. However, we also have dramatic productivity increases through innovations (e.g. the cotton gin, better cotton seed varieties) and the migration of plantations to locations with more productive soils and superior climate. To ramp up production and expand, a functioning financial system and markets are needed that can extend credit and facilitate buying and selling. We need transport infrastructure to take the cotton to its destinations in the US and across the ocean to Britain. People needed to research, invent, build and operate all of this to make cotton a viable product, so even within the cotton industry there were other contributory factors than slave labour that were necessary.

Additionally, the same is true for the textile industry where, instead of slave labour, people worked voluntarily. Without investment, innovation, machinery, transport, finance and so on, cotton would not be processed into something useful. But even if we leave aside all factors bar labour, I'd like to ask the question why the workers in the textile factories in Britain and the US weren't as key in the industrial revolution as the slaves who toiled away on the plantations. And there is an additional factor here too, as the workers actually became consumers, whereas slaves were prevented from creating demand which in turn fuelled more industrial production.

I don't know if I completely agree with all your conclusions and I am unsure if these exact statistics are accurate that you got from your source. Do you have a source from well a respected economic publication to back up the accuracy of these statistics you are presenting ? It's a fair request I am making in asking you to back up those statistics up from a well respected and scholarly economic publication that has accurate information from that time period.

Some of the statistics are sourced in the papers I linked, e.g. export/GDP, income/GDP, cotton/industrial production. As for the contribution of cotton production to the economy and income from cotton, in the years 1859 and 1860 the Journal of International Economics has the following:

The welfare gain appears small in relation to total GNP because cotton was not a large part of the overall antebellum economy; the value of cotton production amounted to 6% of GNP in 1859, and the ratio of exports to GNP was only about 9% in 1859. Alternatively, we could consider the South as an independent economic entity. Easterlin (1961, p. 535) estimates that the South accounted for 26% of America’s income in 1860, which would imply that the welfare gain is between 0.9% and 1.2% of the South’s GNP. The value of cotton production in 1859 amounted to 23% of the South’s income, so this relatively small figure is not due to the unimportance of cotton to the South’s economy.

Another economist:

On the eve of the Civil War, grain production was the largest source of income from crop production, but the most important single commodity was clearly cotton. Taken as a whole, however, the preceding tables illustrate why it is probably not useful to regard cotton, or any other single good, as the central to American economic development. On the eve of the Civil War, cotton accounted for about 35 percent of the value of crops produced. That is a large percentage, but because crop production was only about 51 percent of agricultural output, cotton only accounted for about 17.8 percent (.35 x .51 = .178) of agricultural production. That is still a large percentage, but if we are interested in cotton’s importance for the whole economy, we must keep going. Because agriculture accounted for 56 percent of commodity output in 1859 and cotton accounted for 17.8 percent of agricultural output, cotton accounted for about 9.9 (.178 x .56 = .099) percent of commodity output. Finally, because commodity output accounted for 59 percent of all output, cotton would have accounted for about 5.8 percent (.099 x .59 = .058) of all output. If you conduct the same exercise for 1850 you would get an estimate of about 4.8 percent. If you compare the cotton values from the above table with estimates of nominal GDP from measuringworth.com, cotton equals 4.95 percent of GDP in 1860 and 4.57 in 1850. Although the second method is more direct, I wanted to show why cotton is a relatively small share of the whole economy: people produced many different things. Even after cotton’s rapid expansion during the first sixty years of the nineteenth century, it accounted for less than 6 percent of GDP.

[...]

Slavery was not central to American economic development in the sense that it did not power the modernization of the rest of the economy. The claim that slavery was central to American economic development is factually incorrect: slavery was important, but no one thing was central. The claim also promotes a misleading view of the process of economic growth. It suggests that economic growth is about one big thing. No one thing was big enough to drive economic growth, not railroads, not cotton, not cotton textiles. Explanations for economic development need to explain why people were investing and innovating in a lot of different things.

I thought I did address my last point in my previous point, but I will add a bit more information in case I didn't:

Now, Henry Louis Gates doesn't give these sort of economic statistics that you are throwing out there but he is Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University as you can read about him here: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americ ... about-hlg/ . This lends the information I am posting to you some very strong credibility given that my information comes from him. It also the addresses the point you asked me to address too. Here is some additional information on Henry Louis:

I don't think the standing and credibility of James Oakes, a historian, is any less. Neither can anyone quibble with Alan Olmstead, who specialises in economic and agricultural history, or Paul Rhode, who is also an economic historian. With respect to the industrial production index (Davis, 2004) it is also linked on NBER here.

That being said, I think that addresses what you asked in your last post for me to address. Britain and the entire US were heavily dependent on the cheap cotton that the slave labor from the American south produced. Slavery and the preservation of slavery and the fact that "cotton was king" was THE reason for the cause of the American Civil War. And it was that slavery of African Americans that has had negative legacy that is felt today.

I don't know why you think he addresses my points. Regarding the US he makes some assertions and tells me nothing that you haven't already. And of course he ignores the context of the wider American economy and lets the reader make inferences and jump to conclusions.

As for Britain, it is a similar story:

Slave-produced raw materials generally formed a small share of the price of a finished good, in this case textiles. After 1790 the British exported their Industrial Revolution on the back of more efficient manufacturing techniques which allowed them to undercut foreign competition. The geographical location of the market, or indeed whether that market was supported by rising profits from intensive exploitation of slave labor (or indeed was expanding at all) was of no great significance.

I'm still none the wiser why of all the people who are necessary to fuel economic development and the industrial revolution we are supposed to see those who were forced to grow and pick cotton as central, rather than one contributory factor among many.

[Politics_Observer]

@BigSteve

The first case I mentioned involved a sailor.

The UCMJ makes no distinction between services...

I believe you. So, why hasn't the navy discharged the other sailor? I wouldn't let that one go if I was the Navy.

[BigSteve]

@BigSteve

I believe you. So, why hasn't the navy discharged the other sailor? I wouldn't let that one go if I was the Navy.

I have no idea. I retired 18 years ago...

[Politics_Observer]

@BigSteve

I'll be honest with you, I think the Navy is well disciplined for the most part but it is also a more progressive branch of service. You have to have some pretty brilliant people working on those ships in the Navy as their is very little room for the unskilled. Think of the nuke school they put some of the guys through. I imagine that's a pretty tough school to graduate from. Given that you have to brilliant people in the Navy, it's going to tend to be more progressive in and a little less authoritarian than the Army.

You have to think to some degree in the Army but in some aspect given the nature of the job in the Army, it's sometimes better not to think too much. Those who tend to have an open mind and to be brilliant also tend to be a little more anti-authortarian. They are not well suited for military service in the Army. To be well suited for military service in the Army or Marines you have to have a strong respect for authority and rules. Both branches are really big on the rules and authority. Whereas in the Navy, the guys who invented the Tor browser or graduate nuke school, you have to have a brilliant mind to do that so it lends itself to a more progressive mentality.

@Kaiserschmarrn

You mentioned the cotton gin in your last post, and that was a very important invention for the industrial revolution. Without it, there could be no industrial revolution. Guess who worked those cotton gins!? SLAVES! Guess which invention fueled slavery!? The cotton gin! Guess whose demand for cotton helped to fuel slavery!? Industrialists in Britian and New England. And many of those textile workers you mentioned that worked those textile mills during that time were women. The industrialists preferred to hire women to work those textile mills because they could pay them less than what they could pay a man and those working conditions were brutal for those women that worked those textile mills. In addition, without raw materials like say, really cheap cotton that only slavery could produce, there is no textile mills. Slavery made cotton very cheap to buy. If you paid workers to do it, the cost of cotton would have been more expensive and it is the fact that the south had slave labor and slaves running those cotton gins which made that cotton cheap and in high demand. These ARE irrefutable FACTS. You can't deny them. Slavery was one of the human costs of the industrial revolution. So wasn't exploiting and underpaying women who worked the textile mills. It's what made everything cheap to buy.

This video touches on the importance of cotton and the industrial revolution near it's end. Watch the video. If you are going to post 50 page sources, post exactly what page and where the information you are using is located so it can be easily found. Nobody here on the forum is realistically going to read all 50 pages of each source you post trying to find exactly where the needle in the hay stack is located. And when you post 50 page sources, I am not going to read the sources to that source when I also have to write massive papers and read a 700 page book for my school work (professor sometimes like to cover a massive amount of material). People do have lives outside the forum. So keep it real and realistic and sources shorter and more to the point and easily verifiable or if you do use a really long source, post exactly where in the 50 or 100 page source you are using the information you are specifically cited can be found exactly. Nobody has time to go looking for a needle in a hay stack trying to find the exact information you are using. I don't mind working and reading what you produce, but my time is also valuable too. Here watch this video, it's an excellent video:

[Kaiserschmarrn]

@Politics_Observer, I've linked to two pdf's and given you the page for both. The other quote is from a website so I hope you understand that I can't give you a page.

I'm relying on you actually reading my posts.

[Politics_Observer]

@Kaiserschmarrn

I do read your posts but I am also counting on you to have respect for my time too and post exactly where you are getting your information from if you post a 50 or 100 page source (for example, exactly what page and paragraph your information is located, it was very confusing finding your information and I had to use a vi editor on Linux Ubuntu command line just to locate your information which shouldn't necessary). I suspect people would have a much easier time finding the information I have posted for them to review. Be realistic, nobody has time to read 50 to 100 pages of a source on a forum just so that they can answer your post. Try to use shorter sources that are more concise and to the point. It's more efficient anyway and it's more respectful of everybody else's valuable time.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

@Politics_Observer The page numbers are right there in my post. Why not read it properly instead of complaining?

[Politics_Observer]

@Kaiserschmarrn

Yeah you eventually made your posts more clearer after I asked you too. Come on Kaiser, don't play stupid.

Edit:

@Kaiserschmarrn

BTW, did you watch the video? It's a good video and demonstrates how slave labor, with the cotton gin invention, fueled the Industrial Revolution, along with underpaying women in the textile mills. And I don't know about you, I'm a guy, but if i was a woman, I would want to get equal pay. Maybe you don't, but I know I would if I was in your position. But you know, hey, you do whatever you want to do! I'm just telling you what I would want if I was in that position.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

What are you talking about?

If I didn't know better I'd suspect you'd rather like to talk about how I write my posts than providing a response, or a rebuttal. Care to address my questions and address my points?

[Politics_Observer]

@Kaiserschmarrn

Watch the video Kaiser. Are you a college grad? If so what did you get your education in?

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Watch the video Kaiser.

Read my sources, Politics-Observer. You asked for a "respected economic publication to back up the accuracy of these statistics" and when I provided it you complained it had too many pages. If you can't handle academic sources, or be bothered to find the content within them, I'd recommend you stay away from this discussion.

And, frankly, that you offer me a 10 minute Khan Academy video after all I've written in this thread is quite funny.

And I don't know about you, I'm a guy, but if i was a woman, I would want to get equal pay. Maybe you don't, but I know I would if I was in your position. But you know, hey, you do whatever you want to do! I'm just telling you what I would want if I was in that position.

Now that's a weird non-sequitur.

[Politics_Observer]

I provided it you complained it had too many pages. If you can't handle academic sources, or be bothered to find the content within them, I'd recommend you stay away from this discussion.

I wasn't complaining about your "respected economic publication to back up the accuracy of these statistics" I was complaining about the way you wrote your previous posts using your previous sources. If you can't write where people can easily find the information you are using then I suggest YOU (not me) stay away from the discussion. I have searched many of your sources but the way you wrote your posts added confusion which costed time. And given that I have obviously extended the courtesy to look over your sources, then the next question is, have you extended the same courtesy to me? And if not then why should I continue to do the same for you? Watch my video Kaimserschmarrn.

@Kaiserschmarrn

Now that's a weird non-sequitur.

Ok so maybe you don't want equal pay but then that's your problem not mine. After all, I am a guy and I don't have to deal with such a problem.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I wasn't complaining about your "respected economic publication to back up the accuracy of these statistics" I was complaining about the way you wrote your previous posts using your previous sources. If you can't write where people can easily find the information you are using then I suggest YOU (not me) stay away from the discussion.

In all of my posts, I've told you where to find the information by referring to a page whenever it was possible. Even at the beginning of the post in which I started to quote my sources and which seems to be the one with which you had the most problems, I referred you to the 3rd paragraph of the quote. It's not my problem or fault if you get befuddled or confused. If you only put as much effort into our debate as in your complaints, this would be a much more enjoyable discussion.

And given that I have obviously extended the courtesy to look over your sources, then the next question is, have you extended the same courtesy to me? And if not then why should I continue to do the same for you? Watch my video Kaimserschmarrn.

I don't have to watch your video. I skimmed the transcript and, as I expected, there was nothing new there.

You mentioned the cotton gin in your last post, and that was a very important invention for the industrial revolution. Without it, there could be no industrial revolution.

This is nonsense. The absence of a single invention would not prevent the industrial revolution from happening.

Guess who worked those cotton gins!? SLAVES! Guess which invention fueled slavery!? The cotton gin!

But it wasn't invented by slaves, so this is a separate factor significantly contributing to the productivity and profitability of the American cotton industry.

Guess whose demand for cotton helped to fuel slavery!? Industrialists in Britian and New England. And many of those textile workers you mentioned that worked those textile mills during that time were women.

Yes, and as I mentioned, they are another contributory factor that fueled economic development and the industrial revolution.

The industrialists preferred to hire women to work those textile mills because they could pay them less than what they could pay a man and those working conditions were brutal for those women that worked those textile mills. In addition, without raw materials like say, really cheap cotton that only slavery could produce, there is no textile mills. Slavery made cotton very cheap to buy. If you paid workers to do it, the cost of cotton would have been more expensive and it is the fact that the south had slave labor and slaves running those cotton gins which made that cotton cheap and in high demand. These ARE irrefutable FACTS. You can't deny them.

No. I have already mentioned that Britain had alternative sources. The American civil war was actually a natural experiment that refutes what you are claiming above. When the South embargoed cotton exports, Britain did get its cotton from other sources, albeit at higher prices. Shortly afterwards, there was another natural experiment with abolition in the US, and lo and behold the cotton industry still managed to survive.

The only reasonable claim you can make is that the speed of development might have been slowed due to higher prices.

Ok so maybe you don't want equal pay but then that's your problem not mine. After all, I am a guy and I don't have to deal with such a problem.

This is quite irrelevant.

[Politics_Observer]

@Kaiserschmarrn

Come on Kaiserschmarrn! The industrial revolution needed cheap cotton to start out. The cotton gin and slave labor enabled the cheap cotton that the pommies and the rich white boys running the text-mills needed in New England. They also employed mostly white women in those mills because they wouldn't have to pay them as much as a man. That translates over to higher profits for them and cheaper prices that everybody else wanted when they bought products made from those textile mills. The pommies weren't stupid. They wanted to buy their cotton as cheap as they could get it for their textile mills in England.

They didn't care if the cotton was produced by the cotton gin and slave labor from the southern United States. They just wanted to get as much as they could for as cheap of a price they could and that's why they bought mostly from the southern United States. That meant black folks working for free and white women getting paid less than men for the same work. It's not that difficult to understand. You couldn't have the industrial revolution without all this. Everybody knows, the rich has been screwing over the poor since the dawn of time. Always has been and always will be: