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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

> exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market.

Do you mean like slavery in the United States?

Slavery resulted in zero pressure to innovate and industrialize and was the number 1 reason why the South had a garbage economy.

was the number 1 reason why the South had a garbage economy

I am not sure what the implication of garbage economy is, but the south was fairly wealthy antebellum. So much so that they supported a large tax base for the federal government which they resented, it lead to the nullification crisis in 1832 and started the long road to the civil war. Southern universities where also considered to be some of the best in the nation pre-war.

If you where referring to an economy based on the backs of slaves then yes it could be labeled a garbage economy but if it is in reference to the poverty seen across the south in modern day, the antebellum south was a totally different economy and honestly an entirely foreign culture a culture that was decimated (the bad and good parts) in Reconstruction.

> the south was fairly wealthy antebellum.

Not so much when you properly account for the enslaved population. It's just not sensible to only count free citizens, that's clearly a misleading impression.

Let’s make a compromise and count three-fifths.

It is not a misleading impression, the south as a territory was fairly wealthy for much the same reason that todays California is fairly wealthy, that does not mean that the wealth distribution was good, nor does it mean that I advocate for a return to that system as it was abhorrible. The south was a shining example of wealth concentration and the ability to control that it brings. But economically it was strong, so strong that they had a slogan that cotton was king. The implication was that the European powers and their need for the souths exports would drag them into the war on the souths side. It was prides folly to think ]their economic hand was that strong, and they certainly overplayed it, but it was strong and that is why they felt they could play it.

Its worse than that, its not about not counting the slaves, the slaves literally are the wealth they were counting, and were the largest capital asset in the country.

There is a contemporary books that explains this called The Impending Crisis of the South[1]. It was banned throughout the south and men were executed for distributing it in Arkansas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impending_Crisis_of_the_So...

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