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Edited on Sun Sep-14-03 11:57 PM by happyslug
One of the problems with these types of books is the authors tend to ignore economics, or have a poor understanding of economics.
For example, Slavery. During the American Revolution the attitude of Black Slaves changed as the war shifted from the North to the South after Saratoga in fall of 1777. In the North was the only state that had (or would) abolish slavery before 1787 (During the Constitutional Convention it was noted only one state had abolished Slavery, the rest of the North did so over the next 20 years. On the other hand Slavery was small economic group in the north unlike the south where the number of slaves were quite large).
With the shift in the War to the South, the British started to recruit runaway black slaves as solders. This increased from the taking of Charleston in 1778 and its Evacuation in 1782. When the British left they took 18,000 such blacks with them.
This confirmed what many in the United States had found Slaves to be, an internal security hazard. In both the North and the South this threat still existed after 1781. Both areas started down the path of abolish of slavery. The South was economically depended on Slaves, but even in the North people did not want to se their "property" abolished without compensation except if it was over a time period. Thus some states took 20 years to free all of their slaves. The steps each state took were roughly these, first changed the law that any child born of a slave was also a slave. The states changed the law to being that such child was born free. The states than adopted a policy that a slave owner only had 20 years or so (Varied from state to state) to own a slave and after that time period the slave was freed (with provisions that such ex-slaves had to be able to work so they could not become burdens on society i.e. not so disabled that they would be on welfare).
This pattern was re-enforced by the growing separation of Church and State. As I have said elsewhere the main push to separate Church and State was NOT the growing belief in that separation of Church and State was good, but that the states would free itself from paying for the poor. If this sounds like the GOP's 1995 Welfare reform message "We want to help the poor to go from Welfare to Work", you are correct. In 1995 the GOP did not want people to go from Welfare to Work, the GOP just wanted to kick people off Welfare. The same in The decade after 1787, The States did not want to free The Churches so that The Churches would be independent of The State, but to free The states from paying the State Churches to care for the poor in their Parish. Just like in 1995 where the GOP kept saying "Welfare to Work" but meant "cut welfare" in the 1780s and 1790s Politician said "We want to Separate Church and States" when their meant "Poor people do not look to your local church for support, they no longer have any money to pay you, go west and steal some land from the Indians".
Remember prior to the Revolution all of the Colonies ran what we would call Welfare programs through their Official State Church (Anglian in the South, Congregational in New England, Dutch Reform in New York, and in other areas the Presbyterian Church. By "Freeing" the church from the State, the State also freed itself from supporting the poor.
This freeing The Churches (and cutting off the poor from most support) caused the poor to look elsewhere to support themselves. The subsequent movement West, i.e. over The Appalachian mountains, was pushed as where The poor should go to live.
I mention this in The situation of Slavery was that the movement west was also the North's solution to old ex-slaves who their owners no longer wanted. The States wanted these ex-slaves to go West, but they could only go west if they were still relatively young (i.e. below 50). Just old enough to worry about how they will live when they are to old to do hard physical work, but just young enough to clear off a small plot of land so that they can grow enough to live on till they die.
This was occurring in the late 1790s. It continued in the North for another 20 years till the last slaves died or was freed. In the South the Cotton Gin was invented.
Cotton became The number one export of The US almost immediately after The invention of the Cotton Gin. Cotton has been used for Millennia for clothing, but mostly low land cotton for the seeds are easy to remove by hand, up land cotton was not liked for it was to hard to pick out the seeds from the cotton. Low land cotton could only be grown in small areas of the south, where it competed with Rice, Indigo (a natural blue dye) and sugar (which was Highly profitable) for the water needed to grow.
It was the invention of the Cotton Gin that permitted quick and cheap way to remove the Cotton seeds from high land cotton, cotton that did not have to be grown in high water environments but anywhere in The American south with a long enough growing season (Roughly below The line that is the border between Virginia and North Carolina Border, Kentucky and Tennessee and Missouri and Arkansas).
Cotton Farmers needed just more thing to grow and produce cotton for export, labor. Labor was short in America, so the South resorted to Slavery to solve The labor shortage problem at The cheapest price possible. Thus after 1800 Slavery BOOMED in the South. While prior to 1797 Slavery was almost ready to be abolished in the South as it was being abolished in the North, after 1800 all such movement ended. In fact after almost 25 years of NO importation of slaves (some did come in but most immigration of any body, either slaves from Africa or Freemen from Europe, ended in 1774 with passage of the British Intolerable Acts. This lack of immigration continued through the Subsequent War of Independence and the Wars of The French Revolution).
Now immigration from Europe did not resume till The Massive Irish migration of 1830, but African Slaves started to be imported after 1800. The French Fleet was destroyed in 1805 so that Britain Controlled the Seas and the Slave Trade till Britain abolished the trade in 1835 (When it was assumed by other nations). Importation of Slaves continued till 1865 (Yes, even as Lee's Army was being destroyed outside Richmond, someone smuggled slaves into the South for sale).
Thus Cotton was to profitable NOT to be planted and Slavery was a way to insure cheap labor. The issue than becomes when would Slavery be abolished, if not by war? Slavery was STILL profitable in 1865 and would have been profitable in 1880.
In the 1880s the Boll Weevil entered the US. The Boll Weevil destroyed Cotton crops but while the Boll Weevil a disaster, what would the slave owners have done in face of the Boll Weevil? Many a freed slave in the 1880s was pinched by the drop in the price of cotton their could produced AND the price their had to pay for food, clothing, and taxes on their land. The same with their white neighbors. In that situation most mortgage their land, planted another cotton crop the following years and when that failed lost their land to the man their had borrowed the money from.
The new owner of the property tended to kept the old owners on as share croppers. This was how sharecropping started. If slave holders still had slaves their could mortgage their SLAVES and plant the next crop (something that was quite common in the Ante Bellum South). If the Crop failed a second time the Slaves and the plantation was sold to a new owner. Thus while the slaves may have starved to death for lack of food, I do not see them being freed. The Plantation was only economically viable with a slave work force (or its subsequent replacement, the sharecropper, but the Sharecropper was less profitable).
The chief problems with a Sharecropper that while he did not have to be feed, he could leave and thus leave the Plantation owner with no workers. The South switched to other crops to wait out the Boll Weevil, and once it was contained Cotton was profitable again (The lost of crop also increased the value of cotton, so that while a sharecropper might die for lack of a crop, the Plantation was just big enough so that some part would not be affected and thus still be profitable. Thus, in my opinion, Slavery would have survived the Boll Weevil invasion).
The next thing that hit the south was the Great Depression. Again a hard time, but if you view people as property, and that the crop was still in demand, just wait out the hard time till demand increased again. Thus I do not even see Slavery being abolished during the Great Depression.
That brings us to the invention of the Automatic Cotton Picker. It slowly became the main way to pick cotton starting in the 1950s and by the 1960s almost no one picked cotton by hand anymore. The Sharecroppers were kicked off their lands so that the big machines could operate free of any fences. Slavery would NOT have survived this. The Automatic machines did not have to be feed when the crop died, or not worth harvesting do to low prices. Slaves have to be. Thus the Southern Slave Owners would have freed their slaves about 1964 (Through knowing the South their would have demanded compensation from the Feds for the lost of value of their slave property do to the new technology). Unlike the Boll Weevil Invasion of the 1880s and the Great Depression, the Automatic Cotton Picker was much cheaper way to pick cotton than having the cottom picked by hand, thus Slavery could no compete and slavery would have been abolished around 1964.
Now as to Low Crime Rate, let me say this thing, for Slavery to Survive the Slave owners had to be brutal beasts. You had to force the slaves to work and be prepared to wipe them if they refused, you had to be willing to kill them if they tried to revolt. Slave owners had to intimidate the slaves by killing one every so often (perferably a neighbors so that he incurred the economic loss, but a slave had to be killed just to remind the other slaves what would happen to them if they tried to revolt).
As you can see you end up be brought up in a very Violent world. Where violence was expected. One of the problems of the American South to this date is a much higher level of violence compared to the American North. This is directly related to Slavery (and to a limited degree the repression needed to keep up segregation from the 1880s till the 1960s). While the South “months” freedom to bare arms, historically Southern White have NEVER intended that right to extend to blacks. The Intimidation needed during Slavery (and sharecropping and Segregation) had to be violent and as such lead to the development of the Culture of Violence noted in the South. If the targets of that violence had weapons it would have lead to the deaths of Whites, thus the attitude that the Freedom to bear arms only belonged to whites (I should note many a black held off whites with a weapon, but only if the whites backed down. If the Whites attacked anyway, the black was killed them and there, or later when a larger mob came back to punish the black for killing a whiteman. Remember intimidation must be permanet, if you let up, intimidation becomes useless. This is the reason so many blacks were killed in the South. It was to make sure all of the blacks understood NOT to stand up to a white man at any time. Unless the whites backed down WITHOUT ANY OF THE WHITES BEING KILLED, the logic of Segregation drove the local whites to kill the black who killed a white in self-defense. This is one of the problems of the South from 1977-1974.
Thus while, I believe it is true that more firearms (and knowledge and training in firearms) tend to produce less violent societies than unarmed ones (more do to the KNOWLEDGE that the violence that either side can appeal to would cause more harm than the any underlying dispute thus encouraging compromises by both sides in any disputes as opposed to the concept that the peace is maintained do to some balance of terror between two armed camps), the residue of slavery is (and was) to strong to produce a peaceful society till Slavery was abolished. Thus while I believe the US would be a much less violent country today if Slavery had been abolished in 1787, I have to say that I do not see Slavery being abolished till 1964 WITHOUT SOMETHING LIKE THE CIVIL WAR and reconstruction.
Even with the Civil War, some sort of support to the former slaves had to be maintained for 2-3 generations (i.e. 1865-1905) NOT abandoned in the 1880s with Segregation imposed in the 1890s. This support to both blacks and whites had to exist before the rate of Violence in the SOuth could decline. Furthermore this would have had been backed by the same level of support the US gave to support changes in the South that the North imposed during reconstruction (1865-1877). This support had to be continued for that 2-3 generation period (i.e. till 1905 NOT 1877).
The problem with the South was the North STOPPED its reconstruction in 1877 when it should have continued till at least 1905 (And probably through the Great Depression). Starting in the 1950s the US again tried to change the South (and we are slowly changing it again). This time parts of the reconstruction is being demanded by the new urban centers in the south (these urban centers can not afford to stupidly of segregation and violence which is a residue of slavery).
Even in some rural areas of the South the change is incurring (do to the need to retained skilled workers who do NOT want their children exposed to excessive violence and the lack of education that seems to go hand in hand with the violence in the South).
My point is a “peaceful” armed America would NOT have been possible without addressing Slavery. The economic underpinnings of Slavey was to strong for that to be addressed till the 1960s (without a Civil War or other acts of Violence). These types of novels tend to ignore these problems for they cut out Economics from the premises of such novels. You can NOT cut out economics from Society and still show how that Society is operating (or could operate).
Violence begets Violence, Slavery was the Ultimate type of Violence and I do not see Slavery being ended WITHOUT violence even in the 1960s (If no Civil War, than Slavery would have lasted till 1964, where the slave owners would have hired thugs to kick out the now “free slaves” and tell them to go elsewhere to starve to death, thus even this “peaceful abolishment would have lead to violence”).
Thus a peaceful society could only develop after 2-3 generation of re-education of people that violence was bad (if Reconstruction had continued till at least 1905, of if the above Peaceful Abolishment in 1964, re-education of both Slaves and Slave owners would have had to continue till at least 2004, something that is ongoing in the South but the last 40 years has NOT been at the level needed, but is entering that now and one of the reason we have seen a drop in Crimes starting in the 1990s).
Now the above seems a little rambling, and it is, but my point is that novels such as the one under discussion tend to ignore economic traps and as such ignore how people really act.
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