Show threadCory DoctorowOct 27, 2023

I. Pure #denial

As far back as the slave trade, corporate apologists and mouthpieces have led by asserting that true things are false, and vice-versa. In 1837, #JohnCalhoun asserted that "Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." #GeorgeFitzhugh called enslaved Africans in America "the freest people in the world."

3/

Adrian Riskin Mar 16, 2023

I'm continually surprised at the quality of southern slavery-apologist criticism of economic theories about free markets and labor. EG here's George Fitzhugh on Adam Smith:

"He saw only that prosperous and progressive portion of society whom liberty or free competition benefitted, and mistook its effects on them for its effects on the world."

There are a lot of books like this from the time that combine really incisive criticism of claims that free laborers were actually free with utterly psychopathic defenses of the most brutal form of slavery the world has ever known. Here's the source:

https://archive.org/details/sociologyforsout00fitz/mode/1up

#Slavery #ChattelSlavery #GeorgeFitzhugh #SociologyForTheSouth #AdamSmith #FreeLabor

Sociology for the South : or, The failure of free society : Fitzhugh, George, 1806-1881 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Sabin

Internet Archive