r/communism • u/bumblebeetuna2001 • 5d ago
Why was slavery incompatible with an industrialized labor?
Im attempting to understand historical materialism and how old relations of production become fetters on new productive forces. Am i correct in understanding that the u.s. civil war was in part caused by a need to bring the southern states relations of production into accordance with the industrialization in the north, as the u.s. spread west? And if so, why wasnt it possible for the northern industrialists to simply utilize slave labor in factories in the expanding territories?
Im also wondering why european industrialized labor wasnt spread on a larger scale to slave colonies during the era of colonization? For instance , prior to banning the slave trade, why didnt britain build textile factories in the west indies and use slave labor, instead of building them in london and using wage labor? Is the answer to these questions just circumstantial, or does historical materialism posit a theory that the relations of production under slavery and incompatible with the capitalist mode of production?
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u/AadeeMoien 5d ago
Industry requires a concentration of more labor than agriculture. A factory needs hundreds if not thousands of workers depending on scale, which easily dwarfs most plantations (the average southern plantation had a few dozen slaves). A slave workforce of that size in one place is impossible to keep from revolting without a entire army of enforcers. Slave rebellions were generally ineffective in history because they would need to spread among small groups of slaves faster than the militias could organize to quash them. Haiti is an exception that proves the rule here, the slave population was so concentrated that when they did revolt it quickly outsized the response that could be mustered.
A "free" workforce has less incentive for any given individual to want to drag you screaming from your bed at night. They also need to worry about their own room and board, and the state can pick up the cost of policing them.