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February 11, 2005

20050210: Economics 113 Lecture: Slavery: Cui Bono?

Charles of Windsor to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles

The Persistence of Southern Slavery the Result of:

• Free land (which makes emancipatory bargains unworkable) (Marx: Swann River Colony)
• Cotton gin (which gives you another staple crop you can grow for which monitoring is easy)

Geographical distribution of slavery:

• Plantation south--slavery
• Mountain south--not much slavery
• North--no slavery
• Border state antislavery--Cassius Clay--get rid of the "Peculiar Institution"--no desire to free African Americans

The northern desire to see slavery set on the "course of ultimate extinction"

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Ulpian: Roman jurist: Cui Bono? Who Benefits?

Who benefitted from the crime of American slavery?

Do comparative statics with a counterfactual world in which cotton was grown using free labor rather than with slaves.

Handout for the cui bono? analysis of slavery...

Posted by DeLong at February 11, 2005 02:05 PM