Joshua Rothman has written an essay
on the new history of capitalism and slavery. In it he illustrates some of
the fundamental problems with the recent work in this area.
First, he perpetuates the misleading historiography that claims
the new historians of capitalism have overturned the old orthodoxy that slavery
was apart from capitalism, pretending that economic historians had not been
making that argument for over a half century.
Second, although he acknowledges that there have been
critics, rather than addressing their claims, he writes them off as a matter of
dogma rather than analysis. Evidently it is dogma to oppose inaccurate
historiography. And it is dogma to expect a historian not to make
up evidence. I am willing to say that I subscribe to this dogma.
Yet, as Rothman points out, this work seems to appeal to
many people. It seems particularly timely as people worry about the ongoing effects
of financial crises, increasing inequality and racial discrimination. This
appeal is in some ways the most fundamental problem with the new history of
capitalism. “Like my book because I claim that capitalism was the driving force
behind the brutality of slavery.” “Like my book because it shows that slavery
was the driving force behind American economic growth.” Numerous fans of
Baptist’s book have observed that he showed that slave grown cotton accounted
for half of economic activity in 1836. But anyone no one who actually reads pages 321
and 322 can fail to see that the numbers are made up and then aggregated in
ways that make no sense. People have, however, chosen to overlook that if they
like the conclusion. And this is the most fundamental problem: people evaluating
someone’s work based upon how well it fits their preconceptions rather than the
actual quality of the work.
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