Never twice as efficient, although debates rage about how much more efficient. Also some of the efficiency came from "breeding" slaves for sale on the market. Also, the plantations were on the most productive lands. Finally, the plantations often exhausted the soil -- leading to a double exploitation of land and humanity.
On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 08:39:19AM -0700, Chris Doss wrote:
>
> There, he makes the suprising (to me at least) claim
> that slaves on plantations in the US South were
> actually twice as efficient as white hired workers on
> the same plantations. Apparently this caused a scandal
> among Soviet practitioners of histmat, as it was
> supposed to be impossible for slave productive
> relations to be more efficient than capitalist ones.
> Now, is it true?
>
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu