Freedom is Slavery
Mar. 16th, 2010 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenBleh. Had to present an in-character defense of Southern succession in the American Civil War history tute today. I think I need a shower.
Oddity in the readings – George Fitzhugh’s “Cannibals All!” offers a defence of slavery by claiming that northern free labourers were worse off because they had terrible wages and working conditions but didn’t have the security of slaves and weren’t guaranteed food or housing. Alright, a lot of defenders of slavery argued that. But he goes a step further, and argues “Slavery is a form of communism, and as the abolitionists and socialists have resolved to adopt a new social system, we recommend it to their consideration.”
Now there’s an interesting political what-if – not Confederate Socialism, but what if Fitzhugh’s argument gained prominence in histories of the Civil War? We could have the Confederacy being painted by American historians and popular culture as the nineteenth century Soviet Union, and the Republican party could claim their first leader as the first anti-communist. No Republican Southern Strategy, of course, and the deep south would presumably remain strongly Democratic. And what of the impact on the American labour movement, if socialism was even more demonized than it was in our world?
Oddity in the readings – George Fitzhugh’s “Cannibals All!” offers a defence of slavery by claiming that northern free labourers were worse off because they had terrible wages and working conditions but didn’t have the security of slaves and weren’t guaranteed food or housing. Alright, a lot of defenders of slavery argued that. But he goes a step further, and argues “Slavery is a form of communism, and as the abolitionists and socialists have resolved to adopt a new social system, we recommend it to their consideration.”
Now there’s an interesting political what-if – not Confederate Socialism, but what if Fitzhugh’s argument gained prominence in histories of the Civil War? We could have the Confederacy being painted by American historians and popular culture as the nineteenth century Soviet Union, and the Republican party could claim their first leader as the first anti-communist. No Republican Southern Strategy, of course, and the deep south would presumably remain strongly Democratic. And what of the impact on the American labour movement, if socialism was even more demonized than it was in our world?