it's a mistake to generalize from one plantation to conclude anything about the Southern slave-plantation cotton & sugar complex. Jefferson introduced improvements because he was in love with the Englightenment. But most plantation-owners accumulated land and slaves rather than improving technology (which they thought wouldn't mix with slavery) and rejected the Enlightenment, clinging instead to paternalistic & nostalgic visions equating themselves to the Greek and/or Roman slave-owners. (for some reason, Eugene Genovese fell in love with these ideologies.)
On 5/27/07, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
sartesian wrote: >However (again!), the record of plantation production in the US-- >"capital" investment, percent of acreage sequestered vs.cultivated, >etc-- shows "improvement" had not achieved the status of compulsory >practicce. The Southern economy as a whole exhibits this same >lassitude. Compare the expansion, volumes, and technical sophistication >of Southern railroads vs. Northern railroads in the period up to and >including the US Civil War. > > > But Jefferson's plantation employed the same amount of technology as did Great Britain. The article about British farming productivity rates that I posted a couple of weeks ago makes clear that improvements in the 18th century were a function of farm size not machinery. There is basically no difference between Jefferson's plantation and a large British farm in this period other than the fact that one used wage labor and the other used slaves.
-- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
