John Nye: belief

Transcript context

…Some questions from American economic history. If we think of the decline of slavery in the 19th century and then the Civil War, was that the result, ultimately, of economic factors? Or it simply was political force, and there was a war, and the South lost? But was slavery evolving out of the South for economic reasons? I’m not an expert in this area, so I’m just going to recite the consensus. I believe the consensus is that pure economic factors weren’t going to drive it out, at least in the short to the medium run. Perhaps over another century it would have, but the evidence, as at least it was presented to me in economic history classes — which I haven’t always kept up with — suggests that the political factors were very important in getting rid of it, including the war. If you think more generally about 19th century economic growth, the numbers we have for GDP growth — they often don’t appear impressive. Is it that growth actually was slow, the numbers are wrong, the big effect was simply getting more people into the country? How do you interpret the 19th century American episode — slavery aside — the growth of the rest of the country?…

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