What the Civil War Was About
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/opinion/haley-civil-war-slavery.html
Paul Krugman:
As Domar pointed out, there’s little reason to enserf or enslave a worker (not quite the same thing, but let’s leave that aside) if labor is abundant and land is scarce, so that the amount that worker could earn if he ran away barely exceeds the cost of subsistence. But if land becomes abundant and labor scarce, the ruling class will want to pin workers in place, so they can forcibly extract the difference between the value of what workers can produce — strictly speaking, their marginal product — and the cost of keeping them alive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/opinion/haley-civil-war-slavery.html
Paul Krugman:
As Domar pointed out, there’s little reason to enserf or enslave a worker (not quite the same thing, but let’s leave that aside) if labor is abundant and land is scarce, so that the amount that worker could earn if he ran away barely exceeds the cost of subsistence. But if land becomes abundant and labor scarce, the ruling class will want to pin workers in place, so they can forcibly extract the difference between the value of what workers can produce — strictly speaking, their marginal product — and the cost of keeping them alive.
Slavery, the Industrial Revolution, and the politics of racial guilt
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/09/01/slavery-britain-industrial-revolution-politics-racial-guilt/
The slave economy is an underestimated catalyst in Britain’s industrial take-off
The slave economy is an underestimated catalyst in Britain’s industrial take-off
