Capitalism and (under)development in the American South | Aeon Essays

The Persistent Underdevelopment of the American South

In 1938, near the end of the Great Depression, the US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt commissioned a ‘Report on the Economic Conditions of the South’, examining the ‘economic unbalance in the nation’ due to the region’s dire poverty. In a speech following the report, Roosevelt deemed the South ‘the nation’s No 1 economic problem’, declaring that its vast levels of inequality had led to persistent underdevelopment.

The Historical Context

Although controversial, Roosevelt’s comments were historically accurate. The president’s well-read and highly educated young southern advisors had convinced him that the South’s political problems were partially a result of ‘economic colonialism’ – namely, that the South was used as an extractive economy for the rest of the nation, leaving the region both impoverished and underdeveloped. Plantation slavery had made the planters rich, but it left the South poor.

Unlike the industrialising North and, eventually, the developing and urbanising West, the high stratification and concentrated wealth of the 19th-century South laid the foundations for its 20th-century problems. The region’s richest white people profited wildly from various forms of unfree labour, from slavery and penal servitude to child indenture and debt peonage; they also invested very little in roads, schools, utilities and other forms of infrastructure and development. The combination of great wealth and extreme maldistribution has left people in the South impoverished, underpaid, underserved and undereducated, with the shortest lifespans in all of the United States. Southerners, both Black and white, are less educated and less healthy than other Americans. They are more violent and more likely to die young.

The Current Situation

Now, 86 years after Roosevelt’s report, the South has returned to historically high levels of economic inequality, lagging behind the rest of the US by every measurable standard. The plight of the South is a direct result of its long history of brutal labour exploitation and its elites’ refusal to invest in their communities. They have kept the South in dire poverty, stifled creativity and innovation, and have all but prevented workers from attaining any kind of real power.

The American South is typically defined as the states of the former Confederacy, stretching north to the Mason-Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania, and west to Texas and Oklahoma. Today, one-fifth of the South’s counties are marred with the ‘persistent poverty’ designation, meaning they have had poverty rates above 20 per cent for more than 30 years. Four-fifths of all persistently poor counties in the nation are in the states of the former Confederacy. The data is clear that most Southern states continue to be impoverished and politically backwards. Whether measured in terms of development, health or happiness, the region is bad at everything good, and good at everything bad.

The Role of Capitalism and Slavery

The recent popularity in liberal circles of the New History of Capitalism (NHC) to explain the region’s exceptionalism has slowed in recent years. The NHC emerged in the 2000s and 2010s, as one historian wrote, by claiming ‘slavery as integral, rather than oppositional, to capitalism.’ It seems likely that during the post-Cold War triumph of capitalism, a subset of historians began trying to tie much of the past to the term – with the most extreme instance being the insistence that slavery was the key to American capitalism. While the NHC scholars rarely define terms like ‘capitalism’, the problems with their theories are more than academic. Unfortunately, presenting enslavers as cunning, profit-driven businessmen not only obscures important features about the past, it also downplays immense regional differences in economic development.

Thinking back over the NHC trends, it is important to note how other scholars, both past and present, have presented the problems of the region, and discuss issues that may have been obscured by a heavy emphasis on business and ‘slavery’s capitalism’. As the economic historian Gavin Wright has pointed out, the NHC’s central claim, echoed in The New York Times‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘1619 Project’ – that slavery was essential for American economic growth – ignored decades of accepted historiographical work on capitalism and slavery. It also contradicted nearly everything economists have argued regarding slavery’s impact on the South’s (under)development.

Beginning in the 1960s, many historians classified the South, from the days of slavery until the Second World War, as distinctively precapitalist in significant ways. They saw the region as having a type of ‘merchant’ or ‘agrarian’ capitalism, and never considered the

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

SDGs Addressed:

1. No Poverty (SDG 1)
2. Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)
3. Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10)
4. Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11)
5. Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3)
6. Quality Education (SDG 4)

Specific Targets:

• Target 1.1: By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere.
• Target 8.5: By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.
• Target 10.1: By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.
• Target 11.1: By 2030, ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums.
• Target 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.
• Target 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.

Indicators:

• Indicator 1.1.1: Proportion of population living below the international poverty line, by sex, age, employment status and geographical location (urban/rural).
• Indicator 8.5.1: Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age group and persons with disabilities.
• Indicator 10.1.1: Growth rates of household expenditure or income per capita among the bottom 40 per cent of the population and the total population.
• Indicator 11.1.1: Proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements or inadequate housing.
• Indicator 3.4.1: Mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory disease.
• Indicator 4.1.1: Proportion of children and young people (a) in grades 2/3; (b) at the end of primary; and (c) at the end of lower secondary achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in (i) reading and (ii) mathematics, by sex.

Analysis

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

The SDGs that are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article are:

• No Poverty (SDG 1)
• Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)
• Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10)
• Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11)
• Good Health and Well-being (SDG 3)
• Quality Education (SDG 4)

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

Based on the article’s content, the specific targets under the identified SDGs are:

• Target 1.1: Eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere.
• Target 8.5: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all.
• Target 10.1: Achieve income growth of the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the national average.
• Target 11.1: Ensure access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and upgrade slums.
• Target 3.4: Reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases and promote mental health and well-being.
• Target 4.1: Ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

Yes, there are indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets:

• Indicator 1.1.1: Proportion of population living below the international poverty line, by sex, age, employment status, and geographical location (urban/rural).
• Indicator 8.5.1: Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age group, and persons with disabilities.
• Indicator 10.1.1: Growth rates of household expenditure or income per capita among the bottom 40% of the population and the total population.
• Indicator 11.1.1: Proportion of urban population living in slums, informal settlements, or inadequate housing.
• Indicator 3.4.1: Mortality rate attributed to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease.
• Indicator 4.1.1: Proportion of children and young people achieving at least a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics.

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators