
1776: The Revolt Against Austerity - samclemens
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/may/20/1776-revolt-against-austerity/
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dimitar
Austerity means reducing government debt by increased taxation and/or reduced
government spending. And yet the author talks about slavery, mercantilism,
immigration, settlement, representation in Parliament and a lot more. Why put
Austerity in the title at all?

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tim333
In the article:

"Britain’s national debt had risen to £122 million, or over 150 percent of the
Gross Domestic Product" ... "the British government abruptly changed course."

so the policies were about reducing the debt. The other stuff was part of the
policies. I'll give you that the slavery stuff seems a bit distantly related.

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nateabele
As an aside:

 _" [T]hey believed that after a slight economic adjustment the gradual
elimination of slavery would create a more diverse and dynamic economy."_

It's amazing to me how close we came to having a totally different society.

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baldfat
An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the Pennsylvania
legislature on 1 March 1780, was one of the first attempts by a government in
the Western Hemisphere to begin an abolition of slavery []
[http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/history/gradual.htm](http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/history/gradual.htm)

Wasn't likely to be picked up by the southern states. Was part of the
foundations of the Absolutionist movement and also the reason why Pennsylvania
was a force for the end of slavery for the history of it's congressmen (For
the most part).

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purespark2
Where can I read more about the claim that many of the founders believed that
slavery was bad from an economic perspective because slaves are not consumers?
Is this supported by modern economic thought? Was this view held by southern
founders?

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tankenmate
Two years prior to the invention of the cotton gin the US (as it was at the
time) as a whole produced only 900 tons of cotton a year. With the invention
of the cotton gin production increased greatly as one of the major limiting
factors had been removed by the invention of the gin. This lead to a land rush
for cotton cultivation; the Alabama Fever. Now the limiting factor was farm
hands; this lead to a big increase in the slave trade.

Obviously there was a slave trade prior to the invention of the cotton gin
(1793, well after the Declaration of Independence (US)), but the significant
growth of the slave trade in the US occurred after the invention of the cotton
gin (which lead to the massive growth of the cotton trade; especially in the
US southern states as they had a better climate for cotton growth).

~~~
brc
It's just depressing reading this that the solution to a labor shortage was to
buy bonded slaves.

I know it's something certainly not unique to the american south and it's
still going on today. I guess the contrast to the declaration of independence
and slavery is so telling. Most other slavery occurs under the watch of
despots.

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the_why_of_y
The problem with the labor shortage was less that there was insufficient free
labor available, but rather that the wages that would be demanded by free
labor under these circumstances would be much higher than the subsistence
level required by slaves, which would reduce the profitability for the upper-
class plantation owners.

Evsey Domar wrote a famous paper in 1970, arguing that slavery/serfdom may be
instituted when there is a lot of available land and few available workers,
citing episodes in Europe in the Middle Ages, Russia's eastward expansion, and
the US South.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domar_serfdom_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domar_serfdom_model)

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kardashev
The author of the article is inaccurate. The Declaration of Independence made
it quite clear the reasons colonists separated from Britain.

[http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transc...](http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html)

The British government was forcing colonists to house their troops, which
allowed them "free" housing and food. It also acted as a mechanism to restrict
free speech and to spy on the colonists. Who would speak against what the King
and government was doing if you had his soldiers living in your house?

The British government was also eliminating laws the colonists had made for
themselves, and instantiating his own. The government was kidnapping people,
taking them overseas to be tried for false crimes. The government started
domestic insurrections.

The government also regulated the colonists' trade with other countries,
trying to enrich itself and pay for its irresponsible Keynesian "stimulus".
Therefore the government also imposed taxes on the colonists, without giving
them any representation in parliament. The government actually tried to
compromise with a lower tax, but the colonists were unwilling to have no say
in their government, hence the Boston Tea Party (a demonstration against
taxes).

The government also created a multitude of new government offices and harassed
the colonists with regulations of every sort. The government also hired
mercenaries to terrorize towns, causing great damage and death. They
additionally conscripted colonists into their army to fight their own towns.

All of this the colonists called tyranny, and you can read more in the
Declaration.

So the colonists were not revolting because government was not spending
enough. They decided to form their own government which was only funded by
import duties (and in the early times, taxes on "vice" products like snuff).
No income tax, no social security tax, no death tax, no gift tax, nothing.

It was this practically non-existent government (yet a respect and protection
of private property) that allowed the United States to go from a 3rd world
nation to the most powerful nation on earth. By 1900, the US was a scientific
and manufacturing powerhouse. Permanent income taxes and a central bank would
not come around till 1913.

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gamblor956
The US government was not weak or non-existent until the 1900s. It was
actually quite aggressive and strong, relatively speaking, from roughly 1789
onwards, and especially after the Civil War in the 1860s.

The _first_ US government, founded under the Articles of Confederation, ended
in abysmal failure only a few years after it was formed because it was
"practically non-existent" when its own army revolted (the Whiskey Rebellion).
This resulted in the US Constitution, which dramatically strengthened the
powers of the federal government, and the Bill of Rights, which placed some
limits on the powers of the _federal_ government, but essentially no limits on
the powers of the _state_ government. (Some of those limits would be extended
to the state governments after the Civil War via the 14th Amendment).

Nor were the early years of US history a libertarian wonderland. Despite the
Bill of Rights, the First Congress passed numerous laws restricting free
speech, including for example, the Sedition Act, which prohibited any
criticisms of the government that could be deemed "scandalous" or having the
intent to bring the US government, Congress, or the President "into contempt
or disrepute." Almost all states had laws restricting when businesses could be
open, and almost all states had morality-based laws that many people would
find offensive by today's standards. Many roads, bridges, and many waterways
were subject to private monopolies granting their owners the right to levy
tolls.

Though the Industrial Revolution began around the same time as the founding of
the U.S., the US economy remained largely agrarian until the 1840s, when the
completion of a _national_ water transportation system along the Great Lakes
powered industrial growth in the Northeast.

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ConnGator
It is not austerity, it increased taxes without a say in teh matter.

Author is trying to say it is American to live beyond our means, when from
1779 to 1930 it was the opposite. Sad.

