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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
Posts: 2191
Location: UK Doncaster
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 Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | pandabear wrote: | Why wouldn't modern industrial technological systems work with labor provided by chattels? Many slaves in the South were, in fact, highly skilled craftsmen.
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One of the main costs of slavery was deliberate slow work on the part of the slave along with escapes to freedom. A voluntary worker is more productive.
Can you see people on assembly lines being whipped to make them work faster. Simon Legree is out of place in an industrial scence.
In the late and unlamented Soviet Union where workers toiled for the State production was very low. To get good work from workers one has to give them good material incentives and a certain amount of respect.
ruveyn |
Low production? They still managed to out-tank everybody else combined...
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"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
Posts: 2191
Location: UK Doncaster
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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Dont forget that there is such a thing as political pressure. Had the south been a touch more successful militarily, other nations would have come on board and recognised them as a legitimate nation. Its not much of a jump to see new supplies, militaria and possibly even troops (advisors?) sailing into southern ports after that. And of course the long term result of such a partnership is a certain amount of political leverage on the part of the suppliers... and as the biggest potential backers were all anti-slaving nations, no doubt pressure would have been applied into an "adjustment" of the southern economy to a less slave-based system.. Eventuallly the slave system would have been removed.
And imo the southern cross is much more aesthetically pleasing to look at.
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"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 73
Posts: 4795
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Macbeth wrote: |
Low production? They still managed to out-tank everybody else combined... |
The T-34 built under pressure of war using the Chirsty Suspension which was invented in the United States. Given there was a war on and the alternative was fight successfully or die, I am not surprised the Soviets came through. After the war, their economy went into the crapper and it stayed there. In terms of goods that people use every day like soap and toilet paper, Soviet subjects had to stand in line four hours a day to get the necessities.
The Soviet Union had a second rate economy from the git go and it collapsed under the weight of corruption, centralized control and failure to give workers an incentive to produce. They used to have a joke in the era following the Great Patriotic War: It went like this: They pretend to pay us and we pretend to do work for the pay.
ruveyn |
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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
Posts: 2191
Location: UK Doncaster
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | Macbeth wrote: |
Low production? They still managed to out-tank everybody else combined... |
The T-34 built under pressure of war using the Chirsty Suspension which was invented in the United States. Given there was a war on and the alternative was fight successfully or die, I am not surprised the Soviets came through. After the war, their economy went into the crapper and it stayed there. In terms of goods that people use every day like soap and toilet paper, Soviet subjects had to stand in line four hours a day to get the necessities.
The Soviet Union had a second rate economy from the git go and it collapsed under the weight of corruption, centralized control and failure to give workers an incentive to produce. They used to have a joke in the era following the Great Patriotic War: It went like this: They pretend to pay us and we pretend to do work for the pay.
ruveyn |
Christie suspension.* Indeed, but there is still a difference between production and quality. Plenty of things made, not many of them very good (with the exception of the T-34 perhaps, which was outstanding, and not solely because of its suspension system, and the AK series, which is the capitalist nightmare - cheap AND long lasting.)
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"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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pandabear
Fleeting Body
Joined: Aug 17, 2007
Age: 50
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 6:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Are we saying that the Southern states are the moral equivalent of the USSR? |
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david_42
Sea Gull
Joined: Oct 19, 2009
Posts: 211
Location: PNW, USA
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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beejay - you turkey! I've only read the first eight books of the series and you dump a big spoiler in the plot! 
Not really a problem, as Turtledove is such a great writer, I re-read his work. Actually, purchased and read the eighth book before the seventh book arrived. |
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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
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Location: UK Doncaster
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| pandabear wrote: | | Are we saying that the Southern states are the moral equivalent of the USSR? |
More the counter-factual potential future industrial equivalent.. I think. The implication appears to be that a slave-based economy ould never effectivly industrialize, and that the closest equivalent to a slave-economy is that of the USSR. The difference is of course that the CSA starts with a clear two-race division. White or black, master and servant. The USSR lacked such a polarisation.
Surely a potential industrialised CSA would be limited by the availability of raw materials as much as the enthusiasm of the workforce though.. or its ability to locate/coonquer/trade such materials?
_________________
"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 73
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Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Macbeth wrote: |
Christie suspension.* Indeed, but there is still a difference between production and quality. Plenty of things made, not many of them very good (with the exception of the T-34 perhaps, which was outstanding, and not solely because of its suspension system, and the AK series, which is the capitalist nightmare - cheap AND long lasting.) |
Big deal. They made the best tank and the worst automobiles and just about anything ordinary people might use on a daily basis. Their multi-story apartment buildings fell apart after their first winter and their plumbing sucked. Overall the Soviet economy was dismal to disastrous. Worst of all, their collective farming could not feed the population very well. Thirty percent on the fresh fruit and veggies was produced on the five percent of the land that the State allowed the collective farmers for their own person use. The remaining 95 percent of the cultivateable land produced well below its potential because of corruption and mismanagement. Any centrally controlled economy is going to fail and the Soviet economy failed which is why the Soviet Union no longer exists. They were not defeated in war, they collapsed from their own corruption and stupidity.
ruveyn |
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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
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Location: UK Doncaster
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| Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | Macbeth wrote: |
Christie suspension.* Indeed, but there is still a difference between production and quality. Plenty of things made, not many of them very good (with the exception of the T-34 perhaps, which was outstanding, and not solely because of its suspension system, and the AK series, which is the capitalist nightmare - cheap AND long lasting.) |
Big deal. They made the best tank and the worst automobiles and just about anything ordinary people might use on a daily basis. Their multi-story apartment buildings fell apart after their first winter and their plumbing sucked. Overall the Soviet economy was dismal to disastrous. Worst of all, their collective farming could not feed the population very well. Thirty percent on the fresh fruit and veggies was produced on the five percent of the land that the State allowed the collective farmers for their own person use. The remaining 95 percent of the cultivateable land produced well below its potential because of corruption and mismanagement. Any centrally controlled economy is going to fail and the Soviet economy failed which is why the Soviet Union no longer exists. They were not defeated in war, they collapsed from their own corruption and stupidity.
ruveyn |
However, they managed to maintain their empire for some 70 years as a Communist state. Even if our theoretical CSA only kasted for 70 years, that still places its demise neatly in 1935.. so its existence in one form or another crosses over a great deal of the world-shaping events that lead to WW2... and thats assuming that they would rely wholly on a slave economy for that whole period (and perhaps tries to hold on to too many parallels with communist russia that simply arent there... unless you postulate a slave-uprising overthrowing the "American aristocracy" in a similar vein to the October revolution etc.) Even then, theres no reason to believe that the CSA would rejoin the north (at least not willingly).
I'm not sure that Communist Russia is a brilliant parallel at all. Surely there are other nations with a heavy slave use that could provide a better model?
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"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 73
Posts: 4795
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| Macbeth wrote: |
I'm not sure that Communist Russia is a brilliant parallel at all. Surely there are other nations with a heavy slave use that could provide a better model? |
The example of the Soviet Union supports the thesis that slavery/serfdom does not serve the modern industrial economy well. Modern technology based industrial economies seem to function well enough as mixed economies, with some "socialist" tropes to offset some of the gloomier aspects of the industrial economy. Think of "socialism" or the welfare state as providing air fresheners to the Dark Satanic Mills.
ruveyn |
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ScratchMonkey
Snowy Owl
Joined: Jan 27, 2007
Posts: 134
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 12:20 pm Post subject: |
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Check out the alternate history novels of historian Harry Turtledove:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove
I liked the Guns of the South, in which modern day white separatists from South Africa introduce the AK47 to General Lee, allowing him to turn the war around. The novel reflects how the South was not uniformly racist and pro-slavery. |
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Macbeth
Thane of Bar and Cellar
Joined: May 28, 2007
Posts: 2191
Location: UK Doncaster
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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One of the Turtledove novel editions has a great picture of (possibly) B-17s flying over New York, emblazoned with the confederate cross. Love that picture.
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"Mindset of an aristocrat, budget of a tramp" ZGM
"I dont have to know I'm your first if I already know I'm the best" ZGM
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MussoliniBismarck
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Oct 12, 2009
Age: 18
Posts: 57
Location: Jefferson State
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Turtledove is novice at alternative history from what I have been told. |
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pakled
"Bless his Heart"
Joined: Nov 13, 2007
Age: 52
Posts: 6741
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| Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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Well, he does have a Doctorate (as I remember...incorrectly or not), but it's in Byzantine studies... He did do some teaching, I think.
He knows enough to get some fiddly details right, but he's mainly a storyteller....
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