Without Consent or Contract

Without Consent or Contract by Robert William Fogel

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Robert William Fogel is a Nobel Prize winner and a “cliometrician.” Cliometrics is the study of history by the use of quantitative, usually economic, data. This approach may shed light on what really happened in history, outside of the subjective experience of historical actors.

Fogel's career involved an extensive engagement with the issue of American slavery. In fact, the third and final part of this book deals with Fogel's developing understanding of the nature and moral implications of slavery based on his cliometric studies.

The first part of this book is most involved with cliometric analysis. By looking at studies that have been done on various statistical information, Fogel comes to the unsettling notion that the South was largely right in its positions before the Civil War. The South was prosperous because of slavery; in fact, if it had been an independent country it would have been the fourth most prosperous nation on Earth and more prosperous than any other European country other than England.

Likewise, slavery was efficient and productive, at least with respect to the “gang system” used in the cash crops like cotton and rice. As a result, slave plantations could outcompete free farmers.

Southern plantation owners essentially turned their gang system into an industry using techniques that would be employed by factories in later years. Slaves were given simple, repetitive motions to engage in. Work was done quickly. Lengthy breaks were given at regular intervals. It turns out that slaves worked far fewer hours than Northern factory workers worked. Slaves would work less than four hours a week, less than 8 hours a day, and regularly had Sundays and portions of Saturday off work. When they did work, they worked hard and fast.

Slaves were also well-fed. Slaves in the South were taller and healthier than the free population of most European countries and in the North. In fact, because of immigration, the Northern free population was in a vice of unemployment, depression, low wages, and squalid conditions. Fogel notes:

“The exceptional health of native-born Northerners during the late eighteenth century is revealed by new time series on stature and life expectation recently constructed by cliometricians (see Figure 28) They show that by the end of American white males were more than 68 inches tall (which was 2 to 4 inches taller than the typical Englishman) and had average expectations at age 10 of close to 57 years (about 10 years longer than the English.) However both life expectations and stature began to decline l early in the nineteenth century. The most rapid of deterioration was between 1830 and i860. By the eve of the Civil War life expectation was 10 years less than it had been just before the turn of the century and males born in i860 reached final heights that were about 1.5 inches less than those born in the early 1830s.” (page 360.)

Like most people, I want to believe that such an evil system must have been inefficient and on its last legs, but Fogel's analysis does not fit the “just world” I want to believe in, at all.

The section of the book looks at the history of slavery and abolition in the English-speaking world. Fogel first looks at abolition in the English-speaking world that was the product mostly of the “saints” working altruistically to force the world into their moral image. England ended its involvement in the slave trade, then ended slavery in its Caribbean colonies, and, finally, sought to end slavery through the world, using its diplomatic and military power to coerce other countries, such as Brazil, to give up slavery, and, also, intervening in the politics of other countries in a most imperialistic fashion.

Fogel's description of American abolitionism is involved and educational. Slavery was in the process of abolition in the North during the years of the Founding Fathers as the North attempted to live up to the ideals of democracy. But slavery was more intertwined into the economy of the South and the South moved in the direction of protecting slavery. The abolitionist movement waxed and waned but things began to come to a head because of two issues - the expansion of slavery into the territories and the fugitive slave law. For Fogel, the former was more important since the South kept pushing slavery further and further into formerly free territories. Free farmers were concerned that they would be rendered second-class citizens if they were forced to compete with slave plantations.

Fogel's discussion of the Know-Nothing movement was eye-opening. I had always considered the Know-Nothings to be a fringe movement of kooks, but it was a serious contender against free soil/antislavery/Republicans. In the 1850s, the Know-Nothings had control of the legislatures of several states and had 70 members in Congress. The question was whether politics in the American North would re-organize in opposition to the Vatican Power or against the Slave Power. The Kansas-Nebraska Act changed the dynamic of the competition by fomenting open war in Kansas and dividing the country along clear sectional lines. It was a near run thing that could have gone the other way.

The final section involves Fogel's reflections on slavery and his research. Fogel is clearly aware that his research gives apparent aid and comfort to those who want to argue that slavery “really was not so bad.” Fogel is a conventional liberal and does not want to be the guy responsible for that. I suspect that if this book was written in the 2020s, it would never have been written or published, or that the usual crowd would be demanding his head.

Fogel's response to the conundrum of well-treated slaves, just like the slave-holding South claimed, is to reflect on the core evils of slavery - that it denies dignity and opportunity to human beings. Being well-cared for may be an ideal way to treat a horse, but human beings are not horses.

I found this book to be absolutely fascinating. The first part can be very dense but the insights and learning of this book make it a first-rate book to study on the issue of slavery.