Month: March 2022

 

Chapter Five of Rosenthal’s “Accounting for Slavery” made me think deeply about the extent to which emancipation of enslaved people in the United States changed the dynamic between plantation owners and workers. Rosenthal writes “Planters found that their relationship with their workers had suddenly become market relationships. Now they would have to recruit, maintain, and pay workers” (Rosenthal 158). After I first read this sentence, I was hesitant to believe this notion of a seemingly immediate transformation from slavery to recruited workers who are treated with respect. Rosenthal makes it sound a bit too easy. As I continued reading, Rosenthal came back to this idea several times and he used different pieces of evidence to both support this statement and challenge its truthfulness. 

 

There is no doubt that after the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, there was an immediate transformation. Workers had to be paid, and they could quit their jobs. One piece of evidence Rosenthal uses to demonstrate this is figure 5.1, which shows a chart outlining the productivity on Pleasant Hill Plantation. While these carts normally included the total amounts of cotton picked on the plantation, after Emancipation, they, instead, included days of labor completed by a worker. This wasn’t just the case in regards to the Pleasant Hill Plantation. After Emancipation, there are rarely any instances of plantation owners keeping specific records on the amount of cotton picked by workers. This demonstrates how the degree of control of plantation owners over their workers greatly decreased. 

 

Throughout chapter five, Rosenthal also introduces evidence to refute her claim about “market relationships” between planters and workers. One great example of this is figure 5.3 which shows how plantation owners charged their workers for basic necessities and for absences from work. Plantation owners charged their workers for “shoes, bacon, rice, beef, and taxes” (Rosenthal 163). At the end of the fiscal year, workers were in debt to their bosses on many old Southern plantations. This certainly raises some questions about the reality of “market relationships” between former enslaved people and plantation owners. 

 

The dynamics and relationships between planters and workers in the newly Emancipated South are complex, and undoubtedly, they varied from place to place. It is difficult, if not impossible, to define such a unique time. While it may be true that following Emancipation “market relationships” formed between planters and workers, it is also safe to say that this was not the case in every situation.

In Richard White’s book Railroaded, White argues that although railroads were important to the development of North America, railroads were failures politically, economically, and socially. White makes a point that they should not have been built when they were and where they were. White states, “[Railroads] created modernity as much by their failure as their success” (Page XXI).

White says that although North Americans were aware of the Transcontinental Railroads failures, they chose to look past it because North Americans loved the railroads because it represented the era they were in. It was the era where technology was advancing. Many railroad companies had to be bailed out by the governments and forgiven for their loans that could not be paid back. By the end of the century, the Transcontinental railroad was even under political attack. The government had to suppress workers and protect the rights of their owners and managers for the sake of keeping public good and order.

White says that the railroad allowed people to travel and settle in the West. It also helped transport goods, like: silver, wheat, gold, timber, coal, corn, and livestock. However, White questioned why so many of the railroads were built when there was not much need of them yet. The railroads lured people to settle into places that produced crops, cattle, and minerals that the markets could not even absorb profitably. There weren’t markets created for such things yet, so it ended up for the most part, going to waste. From this, I can tell that White thinks it was a waste to invest so much into the railroads because its cost ended up exceeding their benefits in the long term (Page XXIV).

The passage written by David Montgomery summarizes several points as to how entrepreneurs develop strong businesses, how were the wages when during passing decades, the strategies used by monopolies and elites, government interfering benefits and consequences, and what factors lead to economic crashes. He starts off the chapter with the advancements made in technological fields of trading, transportation, and most importantly manufacturing. The North and South is still in the midst of recovering from their civil war and geographical conditions are affecting production and manufacturing, although, tensions still seem to be still high if the former Confederate states are being omitted from benefits. On the topic of separation, economic classes became a larger issue, race and religion become subjects of prejudice, and political parties clash during the mid 19th century.

During the mid 19th century, the country has gone through a drastic growth spurt in the field of production. With the focus on production being made more efficient with machinery and factories, America has become the top contender for most efficient country in mechanical manufacturing. This leads to the economy growing, and the elites to further the gap between them and the lower class. They call themselves capitalists, yet they see their employees as human resources and issues, they even go as  far as to refer to their status as “middle class”, which begs the question, where does that leave their employees at? (Montgomery, 14) In the passage, the working class were only acknowledged by their superiors when they are working, when they are not, they become strayed from capitalism. If one wishes to earn their keep, they must become earners, but this is taking it too far when the working class works for measly wages and not being treated human. Even less then human is the hysteria of workers coming from abroad, those who have different faith, and those of differing political parties. In modern times, wages and employment are not determined by who one was, but here showed otherwise. An example, Hamilton Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts had different wages for those of Irish and Swedish descent, and also gender. (Montgomery, 41) Montgomery points out that the wages of the masses are very conflicting controversial, nearly the entirety of the 19th century was filled with strife, the civil war, great crash, and even more conflict with the elite and middle classes because of who one was and the lack of much interference to the elites’ growth.

Prompt: What was the historic transformation, or change over time, that the author is describing in the reading? According to the historian, why and how did this change take place? Did these changes take place gradually or rapidly, and how did they affect some of the people involved?

Source: Richard White, Railroaded, Chapter 11 “Creative Destruction,” section 2 “Dumb Growth.”

Answer: In the 11th chapter of Railroaded, titled “Creative Destruction,” Richard White has a very peculiar and unusual section that is reflective of the entire book’s message. The section, titled “Dumb Growth,” is mainly about two things, the immediate inefectiveness of the railroad at beneffiting the places it served, and the demise of the bison which both went hand in hand. The chapter’s subject of creative destruction also complements the prompt well, indeed showing a historic transformation, but one that is more unfortunate, rather than welcomed and needed. 

The section starts off with two simple questions, which are also the subject of the greater work, “But were the transcontinentals worth their cost? And did their rapid expansion, on balance, yield more benefits than harm?” (White, p.460) White also continues to clarify the immediate criticism of asking such questions, by saying that “The issue was never the choice between railroads and no railroads.” (White, p.460) I found this to be a quite novel and unusual telling of the history of the railroads from this period, being aware of the toll it has taken on animals, environment, and the native population, I haven’t considered that the issue was maybe about too much expansion by the railroads, rather believing that it’s introduction itself brought great harm. Hence, it is a bit of an unusual argument to see on this matter. White says the following about the dumb growth, “The railroads seemed unable to achieve a balance between too much and too little. They enabled farmers and miners to produce far more cattle, wheat, and silver than the world needed.” (White, p.461) This matter of excess and unnecessary production and in turn consumption, is what drove this instance of creative destruction. However, creative destruction is often driven by a need, rather than a desire, and it is desire for profit that railroads wanted to satisfy by expanding into untapped lands, hoping that industry will follow the transportation, an extremely backward plan. 

Such an absurd way by the railroads to stimulate rapid economic growth led to a backfire, “Hauling something, even at a loss, was better than hauling nothing.” (White, p.462) Such a business model led to two unfortunate effects, the first being the destruction of the environment as trains would run for the sake of running while transporting little, benefiting the few entrepreneurs and hunters. While the other effect was the artificial creation of industry that normally would not have sprung up through more natural means of there being a demand and a supply, result being that: “Bison became the first victims of dumb growth.” (White, p.462) The story of the bison is intertwined with the story of the Native Americans, both experiencing a severe decline in population beginning in the 1870s. The argument for the hunting and processing of the bison being an artificial industry, is further supported by the figures White provides: “In the years between 1871 and 1879 the hunters reduced the southern herd effectively to zero. Hide hunters supposedly took 3.5 million bison from the southern plains in the 1870s…” (White, p.465) To fractionally reduce the population of a species is an immoral and selfish act, to reduce a fraction of a species simply for the sake of business and trade, not out of necessity to feed the starving is an even more egregious act. The tremendous nature of the dumb growth is made even more clear when “…at a generous estimate 1.75 million hides reached market over the eight years of the southern hunt…” (White, p.465) These figures show the negative side of creative destruction, as well as the dark side of capitalism and consumption, also showing the stark difference between the reasoning behind hunting the bison by the Native Americans and the hunters. 

Although we saw great historic transformation, the great takeaway from this section and chapter is that in purely economic terms, Joseph Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction is rational, justifiable even. Yet when put into practice as seen with the railroads in the American west, the real consequences may not be so rational. Forcing the creation of an industry in a place where it is unlikely, is a recipe for destruction, not the creative kind, but the literal kind. And so went the creative destruction of the non-existent economic system of the American west brought about by the railroads, leading to “…the social costs of farm and business failures, the dispossession of Indian peoples, the degradation of the environment and the waste of resources…” (White, p.462)

Prior to the Civil War, industrialisation was largely restricted to the North. Even in that north, only a small number of employees worked in factories and were paid wages. However, the advent of new technology changed the lives of people in the North. The population grew, which affected the economy and led to goods being produced not just for survival, but also for profit. Farmers began to produce grain for shipment to the city. In both the north and the south, agriculture was the main industry. Industrialisation introduced in the north meant that processes that used to take hours by craftsmen were phenomenally shortened by machines. Hence, people with craftsman’s skills gradually disappeared and employers sought to increase efficiency by having more workers do simple jobs in their factories. For employers, the lower the wages of workers, the higher the net profit. Hence, workers worked 12-14 hours every day for a pittance. Although they were free labourers working for wages, their treatment was probably almost the same as that of slaves. Ironically, however, industry developed because workers worked in such an environment. According to A very short introduction of American Business History written by Walter Friedman, he wrote that the textile industry became a major industry in the USA, enabling mass production that was once impossible. The gains led to further investment and new entrants into the industry, and market competition intensified.

After the Civil War, new energy sources such as oil, coal and electricity, materials such as steel and rubber, and means of transport such as the Panama Canal and the transcontinental railway emerged, and joint-stock companies with modern management methods appeared as governments began to protect trade. These companies made fortunes in the financial and oil markets, creating conglomerates such as Carnegie in steel, Rockefeller in oil and Morgan in finance. Each market was monopolised by these conglomerates. In addition, many slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War did not receive redistribution of land, so they became sharecroppers again, working under contract to their employers. This abolished the traditional institution of slavery, but the reality was that slavish contracts with employers continued and agricultural production did not fall.

In 1859 the eve of the American Civil War, Thomas Affleck, a planter and nurseryman, published the final edition of his plantation record and account book. He thinks that his Journal book of account can save him from financial debt when he realizes he doesn’t have much control over his Plantation workers. After the Civil War, the southern states were still trying to manage their control over their plantation worker knowing that they now had their right to exercise their new freedom. Mr.Affleck realized that he doesn’t have much control over his planation workers so he has to start negotiating with them. 

In 1880, a decade after Affleck’s death his son has a different view of management. When Scientific management practice started to begin, Affleck’s son Issac Dunbar Affleck published the retitled Farm Record and Account book, an improved plan from the original book. Which talked about the communication to scientific agriculture and how offering space for monitoring all kinds of data. The book also shows how much has changed from Thomas Affleck’s earlier volume. When the inventory of slaves was gone, Affleck recommended the careful calculation of human capital. It was Form C, which calculate and record the cotton that was picked, was replaced with a series of forms, C1-C6, each of which is new from negotiating with tenants, planters, and laborers. It was a new way of recording data. 

Planters’ relationship with their workers has changed due to market relationships. Now they have to recruit, maintain and pay workers. It’s a new set of rules they had to obey after slavery was illegal. The plantation owner can no longer use workers for free labor. They have to adapt to the new way of running a plantation and keep track of different data and information to create a new way of managing the plantation. The emancipation has changed the process of enabling exacting agricultural management. After a while, the planters have to restore cotton production but the labor productivity was slow, it wasn’t the same as before when they have full control over their workers.

The freedpeople were the most successful in negotiating during the year of Radical Reconstruction, But they were economically lower in the rank of class and position in society.

At the end of the American Revolution in 1783 several economic and political concerns worried the newly independent nation. One such was the wealthy elite amassing too much political and economic power calling for limits on the amount of land that can be purchased. This point can be shown in (pg 110) when it states Many elites defended their traditional authority and complained that subversive democrats wanted to take all the property and level all distinctions, whereas many farmers and artisans feared an aristocracy of wealth. In order to promote their positions political factions like the Federalist who wanted a strong national government  worked to gather new followers to boost their party. The other party that developed the Republicans or the Democratic Republicans who were concerned about class conflict and wanted a more egalitarian socioeconomic structure. These democrats were looking out for the poorer classes of people against the wealthy monopolizing power. All this shows the post war turmoil as the country grappled with its socio economic policies even when Hamilton introduced a new tax there was revolt the illusion of a smooth transition for the new nation was mired in district and fears of social class. As by the end of the war America had the least amount of class division in the world. Key figures such as Hamilton and Adams feared the French Revolution for its radical ideas and liked England for its Stability so based much of their system on it. For these key members of the Federalist party the French Revolution and its Enlightenment thinkers were a danger to what they worked to build and wanted closer ties to England. As we can see the issue of class and wealth inequality shaped much of this period as strong individual property rights was of importance to American men but also the goal of attaining more economic equality.

When slavery arrived on southern shores of the Americas it commanded a vast managerial and accounting regiment fundamental to plantation success; many of these systems increasingly found their way into northern factories. In the first two chapters of “Accounting for Slavery” Rosenthal reasons, through employing these measures, early southern plantations grew exponentially in scale and economy as factories in the north lagged in its enterprise.  Using the information garnered in “Accounting for Slavery,” this essay sets out to analyze this occurrence and how it characterizes the historical growth of American capitalism.

Plantations necessitated a complex multidivisional operation, requiring an abundance of records keeping, alongside demanding large swaths of land and human resources.  Sugar plantations encompass a variety of labor within a multitude of production stages.  Therefore, sugar production required “the careful administration of the labor of a large number of skilled and unskilled workers. Thus, the usefulness of a balance sheet of lives becomes clear: planters needed not only to monitor the increase and decrease of their human stock but also to monitor changes in skill and labor allocation.” (Rosenthal p. 16) Conversely, most early northern industries were able to construct their factories with far less land and human resources.  Rosenthal demonstrated how the Pierson brothers built their nail factory by capitalizing on the Ramapo Creek, initially requiring few laborers which meant far less intricate bookkeeping.  As their factory grew so did the amount of land, labor, and accounting.  Therefore, it is evident that complex record keeping in the plantation south is necessary at all levels of production, while northern factories tailored their records as businesses grew.  What may appear to be a lag in scale and economy in the north is a result of the exponential requirements of plantation operations.

The north and south also differed in leverage over their labor which set them apart both in accounting strategies and social standards.  As the number of factories and infrastructure increased in the north during the 19^th century, businesses struggled to maintain laborers, they undertook in compromises, while the south coerced their labor forces by using brutal punishment on the enslaved people on plantations.  Rosenthal argues that labor shortages in the north accelerated investment in machinery, alternatively “when factory owners had grasped the theory of interchangeable parts but were struggling to put it into action, slaveholders had implemented a version of the system. But in their great labor machine, the interchangeable parts were human beings.” (Rosenthal 70-71)   Additionally, the south took a larger effort in accounting for their output of enslaved persons and the day-to-day activities on the plantation, which entirely impacted their output; meanwhile, northern factories had far less records to keep as they “depended more on keeping enterprises running than on reducing costs and increasing output.” (Rosenthal 63) Moreover, as slavery became ever more appalling in the north, its protection persisted in the south.

Northern and southern economies diverged during early American years, but they played an equal role in the development of American capitalism.  Rosenthal’s argument on the importance of record keeping during this period provides insight into conducting business in these environments.  Although the southern plantations had an advantage over the northern factories, with large ownership of land and ownership of labor, northern factories demonstrated innovation and a moral compass against slavey.