Ep. 81 Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on the Economics of Slavery and Why the Confederate States Lost the Civil War
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel joins Bob for an in-depth discussion of the economics of slavery, touching on subtleties such as the labor/leisure tradeoff, and the recent claims by some historians that slavery was efficient. Then Bob asks Hummel to explain the provocative claim in his book, that the Confederacy would have done much better militarily if…
Ep. 71 Mark Thornton on How Government Propped Up Slavery in the American South
Economic historian Mark Thornton has published several peer-reviewed articles on the economics of slavery in the American South. In this episode, he and Bob discuss the various ways in which government intervention propped up slavery and masked its inefficiency. . . . Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest: Two of Mark Thornton’s…