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Walker, 1619 Project and Capitalism
The 1619 Project and Capitalism: A Review
Evan Walker
Capitalism is as American as apple pie and winning world wars. It is
exemplified by the American mentality encapsulated in the classic phrase: “Anyone
can make it if they pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” However, for a lot of
people, it is more difficult to enjoy the fruits of such an ethic. I am talking of course
about African Americans. In 1619, the first African slaves landed on America’s shores
and started building the infrastructure for what would later become the world’s
biggest superpower of a nation. The release of the 1619 project has helped popularize
knowledge of the linkage of modern American capitalism and slavery. But thanks to
the New York Times and the journalists and historians who contributed, the
knowledge has hit the mainstream, and it in turn has sparked a new debate about race
and economics. The broad argument for capitalism’s linkage to slavery is that modern
financial institutions were founded in slavery. Wall Street itself, built by slaves. The
state of New York as a financial powerhouse, finds its roots in slavery. Matthew
Desmond, a writer for the Times, states his thesis: “In order to understand the
brutality of American capitalism, you have to start at the plantation.”1 To understand
his argument, we must dive deeper into the 1619 Project.
Founded by the Dutch in 1625 , the New Amsterdam colony would later
become known as “New York.” After the English acquired it, slavery expanded
significantly. At one point, “4 0 percent of households had slaves.”2 The slaves of New
York built much of the local infrastructure, including famous roads like Broadway
and Bowery Street. New York City’s investment in slavery greatly expanded. Starting
in 17 99, New York would pass a series of laws gradually banning slavery. But
investors continued to pour money into the slave enterprise, because many New York
financiers practically bankrolled the plantations to the south because of the cotton
Matthew Desmond, “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism, You Have to
Start on the Plantation,” New York Times Magazine (August 14, 2019).
2
Tiya Miles, “How Slavery Made Wall Street,” New York Times Magazine (August 14, 2019).
1
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boom. According to Tiya Miles, New York City held “financial domination” of the
southern plantations: “New York City’s economic consolidation came as a result of its
dominance in the southern cotton trade, facilitated by the Erie canal.”3 Slavery started
New York’s financial dominance.
In the nineteenth century, cotton what was oil is now. It was a very widely
traded commodity. The problem with harvesting cotton is that it was—and is—a very
labor intensive, menial task. Cotton also sucks up the nutrients from soil quickly, so
growing cotton required the opening of more land for cultivation. So the US did what
it does best: seized land that was not theirs. Entire forests had to be cleared, and
slaves played a dominant role in chopping and axing those trees. As cotton expanded,
so did slavery, and so did American economic prosperity. By 18 31, the US was
producing more than half of the world’s cotton crop, at 35 0 Million pounds of cotton
that year.4 Four years later, the US produced 5 00 million pounds. Northern and
Southern white elites grew rich off the labor of the enslaved people. This large-scale
production of the crop “hastened the invention of the factory,” an invention which led
to the Industrial Revolution and changed the course of human history. Desmond
asks: “Was it slavery that started the industrial revolution or was it just the mass
production of cotton?”5 Desmond addresses this question by pointing out that the
mass production of cotton could not have happened without slaves. Historian Eric
Williams put it best in his 194 4 book “Slavery and Capitalism” when he said that
slavery helped finance the industrial revolution.6
Desmond points out how modern companies use a form of management that
finds its origins in slavery: “You report to someone, and someone reports to you.
Everything is tracked, recorded and analyzed…Data seems to hold a sway over every
operation.”7 However, in Accounting for Slavery; Caitlin Rosenthal points out that
until recently, economic historians played scant attention to the question of how
slavery impacted management practices: “slavery plays almost no role in histories of
management.”8 Desmond also cites Alfred Chandler’s 197 7 book The Visible Hand.
Ibid.
Desmond, “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism.”
5
Ibid.
6
Scott Reynolds Nelson, “Review Essay: Who Put their Capitalism in My Slavery?” Journal of the
Civil War Era 5, no. 2 (June 2015): 290.
7
Desmond, “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism.”
8
Caitlin Rosenthal, Accounting for Slavery (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 6.
3
4
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Since this book’s publication, business historians have come to a consensus that
modern business and management practices can be traced back to major railroad
companies, with slavery playing only a small role in their adoption.9 According to
Richard R. John, a business historian from Harvard University, “Chandler grounded
his account of the managerial revolution in a three-stage model of economic
development.”10 Chandler argues that the first stage from 17 90-18 4 0 had no
influence on modern business practices. Instead, he finds the origin in the second
stage which was from 18 4 0-18 8 0 due to the steam railroad and the invention of the
telegraph. Desmond points out that plantations needed to put their production into
overdrive. To do this, they needed to make a hierarchical system where one person
reports to another to make sure that everything is running smoothly. If this sounds
familiar, it is because that is how almost every office in America works. One person
reports to another to make sure that everybody is being held accountable for their
work. There was also a “central office” made up of the plantation owners and lawyers
to make sure long-term goals are being met. This sounds more and more like the
modern American corporate structure. On one particular plantation, “The owner
supervised a top lawyer, who supervised another lawyer, who supervised an overseer,
who supervised three bookkeepers, who supervised 16 enslaved head drivers and
specialists (like bricklayers), who supervised hundreds of enslaved workers.”11 Like
modern companies, slave owners knew that to get maximum profit that they had to
get the most amount of work possible out of their slaves. Bookkeepers kept a close
watch on the output of each plantation. Plantation “entrepreneurs” like Thomas
Affleck wrote a book called the “Plantation Record and Account Book” which
released eight editions until the ending of the Civil War. According to Caitlin
Rosenthal, this book “was really at the cutting edge of the informational technologies
available to businesses during this period.”12 What Desmond has done is prove the
link between the managerial business practices of slave owners and modern corporate
America.
I agree with Desmond in all of the points that he made. America was built on
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 285.
Richard R. John, “Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents: Alfred D. Chandler’s The Visible Hand after
Twenty Years,” Business History Review 71, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 156.
11
Desmond, “In Order to Understand the Brutality of American Capitalism.”
12
Rosenthal, Accounting for Slavery.
9
10
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the scarred backs of slaves. It was slavery that jumpstarted the industrial revolution. It
was slavery that hastened the invention of the factory. Still today we see signs of
slavery in our corporate structure, in our business practices. To conclude, slavery has
an indisputable link with modern American capitalism.
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