Message to mutuals:
I am proud of who I am, and I am here in this world to stay. But I have to take a hiatus from this particular space right now. This account will be inactive for a while. Thanks for the laughs :)
P.S. …..butt(w)hole.
Daisy M. [she/they]
@daisytigelaar.bsky.social
365 followers 763 following 510 posts
In transition. In recovery.
![Photo of my laptop screen, taken with my phone.
My browser is open to my online class discussion post, and it says:
"Our textbook's analysis of antebellum economic development in the U.S. begins with a helpful description of capitalism. From a Marxist perspective, capitalism is "a system by which the owners of productive mechanisms—whether the 'mechanism' is a farm or a factory—employ laborers to whom they pay wages. The wages are never equivalent to the value the laborers put into the goods and services they produce" [1]. The second sentence in this quotation is particularly important to understand in any analysis of the U.S. economy; there is inequality baked into the U.S. economy, regardless of geography.
Because slavery was so obviously morally abhorrent, it is easy to forget that the Antebellum North was also engaged in economic injustice through capitalism. Personally, I quite disagree with our textbook author's characterization of Marxism as "the most negative" perspective [2]. On the contrary, I regard Marx's theories as plainly observable truths; positive, simplistic framing of injustices may be easier to accept, but with that ease comes a great degree of distortion.
But I digress. I think the main idea we should take from this week's reading, regarding the antebellum economy, is that racial injustice played an integral role in Southern economic development. Black Africans bore the overwhelming brunt of the labor on Southern cotton plantations, and they did not get paid for their extremely physical work. Not only were these men and women unpaid and forced to endure miserable working conditions, but they were also regarded as "chattel."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jci3bycie2lypqpkxebx7fdf/bafkreia5soqiogi5c74ogneakhwryav253khjfxpyumt3irfbhz4hnfixi)
