paying off ex-slaves

Forstater, Mathew ForstaterM at umkc.edu
Tue Mar 27 14:42:40 PST 2001


From: Kelley Walker


>First, slave-owners were not the only ones to benefit.

this one people don't buy easily. i truly think that people _don't_ see how our national infrastructure benefited. it's simply isn't readily apparent to anyone. we don't have a language to think about how we are interdependent.

Mat: But in economics, at least, this kind of analysis is often like their bread and butter. In Economic History ('cliometrics'), 'counterfactuals' are employed to suggest what might have been the case in the absence of x, and the 'indirect' and 'secondary' costs and benefits are investigated in economic policy studies as well. All kinds of concepts that get at the 'interdependence' are readily available, "backward and forward linkages" "multiplier effects" etc. Just about any economist picked at random will readily acknowledge the costs and benefits beyond the surface, obvious ones, and there is a language to speak about and even measure these phenomena. So hypotheses like "No slavery, no industrial revolution" and weaker claims can be easily 'tested.'

MF



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