Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Slavery [Paperback]

Robert William Fogel (Author), Stanley L. Engerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 1995

First published in 1974, Fogel and Engerman's groundbreaking book reexamined the economic foundations of American slavery, marking "the start of a new period of slavery scholarship and some searching revisions of a national tradition" (C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books).

In an Afterword added in 1989, the authors assess their findings in the light of recent scholarship and debate.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“With one stroke [this book] turned around a whole field of interpretation and exposed the frailty of history done without science.” (New York Times Book Review)

About the Author

Robert William Fogel, winner of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, is director of the Center for Population Economics at the University of Chicago.

Stanley L. Engerman is an economist and economic historian at the University of Rochester. His controversial writings on the economics of slavery with economist Robert Fogel were some of the first modern treatments of the subject.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (August 17, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393312186
• ISBN-13: 978-0393312188
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Abolition

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating; sweeps away insidious prejudice August 15, 2007

By Felix Sonderkammer

Format:Paperback

Fogel and Engerman's work turns to primary sources to figure out exactly what the economics of slavery in the American South were like. It turns out that the predominant views are wrong: slavery wasn't unprofitable, slaves were well-nourished and lived almost as long as free laborers, slave families were rarely split up, resistance to slave-owners was rare, and on and on. Farms worked by slaves were 1/3 more efficient that farms worked by free laborers, and slaves received on average more of that higher income than free laborers did. A small proportion of slaves worked as skilled workers in management, engineering, or various crafts. Some of these earned higher incomes than their free counterparts.

Since this is only a book on the economics of slavery (as the book's subtitle says), it cannot examine the psychological or ethical damage that slavery caused, as the authors acknowledge. They do acknowledge that while slaves received a higher proportion of the pecuniary income they produced as wages, food, clothing, housing, and medical care than free laborers did, they also acknowledge that the non-pecuniary costs of slavery to the slaves themselves was enormous. The higher productivity of slave-worked farms was made possible, obviously enough, by forcing the slaves to do what free laborers could not be paid to do: work longer hours in a more regulated, larger farm. Interestingly enough, the gain in productivity this resulted in, while conveyed in small part to the slaves themselves in the form of higher income, did not accrue entirely or even in the most part to the planters. Rather, about half of it accrued to the consumers of cotton. Since most of cotton was exported (primarily to Britain, where most of the cotton was made into clothing), the primary beneficiaries of American slavery were people who bought cotton goods. This is because producing and selling cotton was a competitive industry, where real profits tend toward zero. Thus, while the planters exploited the slaves in reality by whipping them and forcing them to work in ways free laborers would not, the resultant pecuniary exploitation of slaves was accomplished by capitalism.

But perhaps the most interesting thing the book discusses is how the myth of unproductive slaves has contributed to contemporary racism. According to the contemporary racist view, blacks are lazy, morally degenerate, and immature. Fogel and Engerman show that, under slavery, blacks were none of these things. In fact, the evidence shows that they were harder working and more sexually circumspect on average than their free white counterparts.

What the authors point out as a reason there were not more slave revolts is that, given the fact that both Northerners and Southerners were racists, free blacks had little economic, social, or political opportunity. Free blacks in the North were not permitted to do all kinds of things. It would seem that many blacks rationally decided they were better off as slaves. The slave artisans and engineers, however, who commanded the highest wages, were the ones best able to make a living in the economy of the free North and were therefore those most likely to escape.

The book's last chapter deals with the implications of the findings for contemporary race relations. The book shows, of course, that blacks are not biologically inferior to whites. And, in economic terms, blacks were worse off in 1890 than they were in 1860. This isn't because slavery is always economically better than being free, but because the U.S. abolished slavery without abolishing racism. Blacks remained second-class citizens without the power to better their lot economically or politically. At least under slavery their racist owners had an economic interest in their economic well-being. That is the one thing the book drives home in a thoroughly researched and completely convincing way.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Still a Classic July 12, 2005

By Carl Sanders

Format:Paperback

One of the all-time classics in the genre of economic history, there have been very few more controversial books in the past half-century. There are still those today who call Fogel a racist or (as one other commentator did) an apologist for slavery. These people more than miss the point of this work. The profitability of slavery has nothing to do with the morality of it, as the authors point out. This is a survey and analysis of previously unresearched data. Fogel and Engerman take the first systematic look at data on slave movement, working conditions, life expectancy, and the economies of scale in both free labor and slave labor in the South.

Fogel and Engerman attack the thesis that slavery was impeding the economic progress of the South and would ultimately collapse under its own inefficiencies. Instead, they show investment in slaves was even more profitable than investments in free labor, and that owners had developed a wide system of incentives to induce quality labor from their slaves. Some claim that this means that Fogel and Engerman support slavery or that somehow this makes slavery palateable; to the contrary, their conclusion lends weight to the idea that only a Civil War would be able to end the evil practice, contrary to the hopes of many abolitionists who claimed slavery would fall apart due to its inherent weaknesses.

This work was originally shunned, but the force of its evidence and arguments has led it to become the mainstream interpretation in economic discussions of the Civil War period. Fogel recieved the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993 (not solely for this work of course) and his most famous book is still the standard for excellence in his field.

21 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Avant-Garde Economic Interpetation of American Slavery November 9, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Fogel and Engerman challenge the traditional conception of slavery has being a non-productive system but a highly competitive system of human labor. The authors challenged the traditional notion that the Southern aristocracy engaged in sexual conduct with Slaves but according to their research based on Southern Brothels that most whites engaged in illicit sexual activity with other white women. The notion of sexual liberalism in 18th and 19th Century South is contradicted by their body of research. The idea of white aristocracy having sexual relations with the slaves is contradicted by the fact that very few statistics show this relationship through Southern demography. The second fallacy of slavery is that the immigrant community in the north had a higher standard of living than the slaves of the South. This is contradicted by several indicators researched by the authors. A very stimulating book that can be classifed in the Davies slavery genre.