Afternoon Must-Read: Chris Blattman: What The Economist should have read before suggesting that US slavery wasn’t always so bad

Chris Blattman: What The Economist should have read before suggesting that US slavery wasn’t always so bad: “Here’s the jawdropping finale:…

Slave owners surely had a vested interest in keeping their “hands” ever fitter and stronger to pick more cotton. Some of the rise in productivity could have come from better treatment. Unlike Mr Thomas, Mr Baptist has not written an objective history of slavery. Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains. This is not history; it is advocacy.

What could have shed light on this, had The Economist writer bothered to read?… Violence and pain work better in labor markets where people have really poor options, and are easily controlled, like children or the least educated. You see this in child labor during British industrialization, or even in child soldiering in Uganda…. Adults will tend to escape if you use violence, so slavery and serfdom work best when the overlords control the legal system or can hunt you down. You see this with servants in 19th century Britain or with European feudalism and US slavery.

When you make it harder for employers to use force, wages go up. You see this in 19th century Puerto Rico coffee growing, or in the Emirates today. It’s not unusual to see a mix…. And when you turn the entire system against them, yes, whipped people work harder…. Suresh Naidu… yes, rewards can be a substitute for violence, but in a coercive labor market, better pay or food is just service to your larger evil plan to enslave more people more profitably…. Places in Peru and Bolivia with forced labor several hundred years ago are now poorer than other parts of the country…. Racially hostile attitudes also get passed down generation to generation in the US…. Is anyone else feeling depressed and hopeless?