Analysis of the Political Economy of Slavery

In The Political Economy of Slavery, Eugene Genovese argues that the South’s existence was based upon slavery which kept the South from industrializing, and ultimately made them enemies of the North. Slaves were so essential to the South, that removing them would lead to an entire collapse of the South’s economy. Slavery was also essential to the class identity of Southern slaveholding elites, who controlled the South’s economy and government.
The South was deemed a plantation mode of production where large-scale farming elites produce staples for an external market. The labor required is far more than the supply, so laborers are imported. These laborers, were slaves imported from the African continent. The unwillingness of slaves to work, and poor diets, lead to a lack of productivity. Without incentives, the slaves had no reason to work more efficiently. They also intentionally broke tools and equipment, leading to a high demand for artisan workers and cheaply made, low quality tools for slaves to use and subsequently break. Slavery itself encouraged farming over industry and discouraged innovation in labor saving devices that would have more plantations more productive. Soil exhaustion was a problem for planters because of the one-crop system perpetuated by slavery; the lack of crop rotation; the lack of liquid capital making buying fertilizer difficult; and the carelessness of slaves, who made attempts of soil reclamation very difficult. Crop rotation was unpopular because planters didn’t want to waste land that could be used for their cash crop. Fertilizers could not be used properly because planters lacked the equipment for deep plowing, and large plantations were physically and economically impossible to fertilize. Using barn manure was also difficult to use efficiently. Agrarian reform didn’t happen because reform movements were met with little success, the sale of slaves needed steady progress which couldn’t support more than partial and geographically...