I've been exchanging email with Mark M. Smith, the author of "Debating
Slavery". According to Smith, the debate is mainly between "Marxists" like
Eugene Genovese on one side and non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and
Oakes on the other. The former tend to put forward the notion that the
Slavocracy was precapitalist and "paternalistic". The other camp, drawing
from econometrics, tries to show that the plantation system was both
profitable and efficient on capitalist terms. However, they are not
Marxists. Charles Brown states that this is a false debate, since it
excludes Aptheker and DuBois. While not gainsaying the enormous
contribution of these two, my question is whether anybody knows of a
Marxist study of slavery that is in line with Eric Williams and the Monthly
Review school? My interest in these questions is tied to research I did
last year on the Brenner thesis and is particularly focused on the question
whether free labor is a precondition for capitalism. Williams, who was
strongly influenced by CLR James, argues that it was not and that
capitalism and slavery were inter-related. However, most of Williams work
is focused on the Caribbeans. I am looking for that kind of research but
focused on the American South.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
