[extropy-chat] Copycat Copycat

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> --- Joseph Bloch <jbloch at humanenhancement.com> wrote:
> > Some ends, such as the abolition of slavery, justify
> > almost any means, 
> > including (to use historical example) the waging of
> > an arguably 
> > unconstitutional and inarguably vicious and vastly
> > destructive military 
> > action. You've doubtless heard of it... the Civil
> > War? Or, since you 
> > live south of the Mason-Dixon line, the War of
> > Northern Agression.
> 
> Check your history books.  The Civil War wasn't
> originally about slavery.  It was originally about the
> right of states to seceed.  Slavery got tacked on
> afterwards.  The outcome of the war accelerated what
> economics was proving anyway: slavery was inefficient,
> pure and simple.  (Thus the South had less industry
> with which to crank out war material, which greatly
> contributed to its loss.)

Actually, it was about a significant duty on the export of cotton and
import of cloth to and from europe. Northern mill owners didn't want
european competition for southern cotton supplies, or for souther
clothing customers. They also were pro-abolition only in that they
needed cheap black scab laborers to counteract the nascent labor
movement.

The south had less industry because they had few locations worth mining
iron from and little hydropower. The idea that 'slavery is inefficient'
relies on a pollyannish conception of what slaves did with their lives.
While many worked in the fields, many others were blacksmiths,
carpenters, millwrights, and engaged in many other trades. The idea
that the cotton mill made their slavery obsolete is simplistic in the
extreme.

An illiterate slave vs an illiterate immigrant worker. Define how one
is more 'efficient' than the other. The worker may be free to dream, to
aspire, and to get educated if they so chose, but the worker is also
free to participate in collective bargaining (violently so, in some
circumstances).

The Civil War ultimately happened because the US government didn't have
the testicular fortitude to do what the British government had done in
the 1830's: Britain's government spent $20 million to buy out the
property rights of slave owners in Britain. Of course, the southerners
likely belived that even if the US did do such a thing, they'd pay for
it with taxes on southerners....

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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