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American Slavery and the Capitalist World-Economy

The publication in 1974 of two major works on slavery in the United States has been an academic event. All the more so in that it has not escaped notice that the two interpretations-one steeped in the tradition of neoclassical economics, the other in Marxian historiography-are, at one and the same time, competing, overlapping, and complementary. The two books speak to, and are designed to speak to, the central sociopolitical tension of American national life: the systematic oppression of Blacks, its causes and consequences, economic, political, and social. It is therefore quite understandable that both books have been widely reviewed and have given rise to debate and controversy and many symposia. Indeed, an analysis of the reviews and commentaries would in itself give considerable insight into the contemporary American scene. The authors of both books claim that, by reviewing historical reality, they are seeking to rescue the Black from unwarranted opprobrium. They do so, however, in strikingly different ways. Reduced to an extremely crude and oversimplified summary, Fogel and Engerman defend the Black against the charge of laziness and incompetence by arguing that the 19th-century slave in fact worked hard and efficiently, while Genovese defends him against the charge of having been weak or cowardly by arguing that the stance of "accommodationism" and "joy in life" was a subtle and efficacious form of resistance and probably the optimal political tactic for the period. There are at least three different levels at which one could fruitfully criticize these works. One could discuss the social objectives of the authors and the ways in which their writing affects the contemporary political scene. Or one could discuss the concepts they have used to organize their material and how those are tied together theoretically. Or one could discuss the nature and quality of the evidence the authors put forward and the kinds of inferences they draw from it. Both the first and the third kind of critical analysis have been widespread. With regard to their social objectives and consequences, both books have been heatedly attacked and passionately defended, especially Time on the Cross. Specifically, ithas been argued (and denied) that the various "rectifications" they attempt about the day-to-day reality of slave life end up as apologia, however unintended, for slave owners and slavery as a system. It is no accident, therefore, that many Black scholars have been quite angry about the books. As for the process of evidence and inference, the two works illustrate quite different styles. Fogel and Engerman explicitly present their book as an example of the usefulness of cliometrics, "a set of tools which are of considerable help in analyzing an important but limited set of problems"