Thomas Bender’s The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism, and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation, offers a collection of reprinted essays from Thomas Haskell, John Ashworth, and David Brion Davis which all revolve around the correlation between the antislavery movement and capitalism. It is made clear from Bender’s introduction that these men have all accepted there was undoubtedly a link between abolition and the capitalistic market, so the debate therefore is not whether or not there is a connection, but rather the different theories each historian believes the connection pertains to. On page 2 of Bender‘s introduction he states that, “It is clearly a case study on how one might approach questions of the relation of society to consciousness, of interests to ideology, of social practice to cultural formation.”. To begin his book, Bender reprints pertinent parts of Davis’s The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770 - 1823, which provides the basic argument for the debate throughout the rest of the text. Davis argued that the connecting factor between abolitionist movements and capitalism undoubtedly rested with class interests. Haskell, however believed that it was the very culture of the capitalistic market and defined capitalism as “a market economy, not as a system of class relations” (6). Although Ashworth agrees with Haskell’s statement that the modern interpretation which points to class interest as the major cause is open for profound denigration, he ultimately sides with Davis’s basic argument that class interest, although limited due to its cynical assumptions, provides a more efficient explanation for the connection than Haskell’s account(183). Ashworth elaborated much more than Davis did on the ethical aspects of the antislavery movement and states that if one had asked an abolitionist why he or she was an abolitionist “they would have talked a good deal about God and righteousness, a good deal about the evil effects of slavery, and very little about the spreading of the market”(184). With multiple responses by all three historians, this collections of debates does not culminate with a firm answer to the question. As the editor, Bender offers very little of his own insight into the argument and merely provides an explanation that the definition of capitalism and historians sort of slapdash use of certain words in scholarship such as self-interest, class, and market capitalism are critical factors for provoking this debate. Why would Bender offer so little of his own opinion especially when at the end there is no definitive perspective that was proven truer than another?
One bit that I found intriguing was the proposition by Davis and Ashworth to Haskell’s response. Haskell stated that the he was searching solely for a mechanism that could be used to rationalize the change taking place, but to this point Davis and Ashworth propose a new question. Why was wage labor not attacked as well if it was merely the nature and expansion of the market that sparked moral responsibility in society?
How would these three historians react to the Gienapp article? Gienapp proposes that capitalistic attitudes were deeply entrenched in American society long before industrialization, and as a result drastic societal changes occurred. Also there was very little mention of Evangelicalism which we discussed in Southern Cross, which Gienapp(Sellers) believed played a vital role in the strengthening of capitalistic principles (245).
In reading Etan’s afterwards essay for last week’s conversation, I thought his point on the relationship of the past and the present is particularly relevant in this week’s readings as a direct result of the lack of concrete evidence for Davis and Ashworth and the more conceptual and abstract approach to uncovering the past. Although this week’s readings were different whereas each piece of scholarship was critiqued and answered with a rebuttal by the historians themselves, I feel as if it is another step in becoming more empathetic when looking at history and attempting to reveal the past. With last week’s readings on agency and capitalism, as well as past discussions on the use of language especially in Morgan’s American Slavery- American Freedom, we can attempt to synthesize these works relevant to the multiple viewpoints within this weeks reading and that should undoubtedly make for a concerted debate of our own.
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One bit that I found intriguing was the proposition by Davis and Ashworth to Haskell’s response. Haskell stated that the he was searching solely for a mechanism that could be used to rationalize the change taking place, but to this point Davis and Ashworth propose a new question. Why was wage labor not attacked as well if it was merely the nature and expansion of the market that sparked moral responsibility in society?
How would these three historians react to the Gienapp article? Gienapp proposes that capitalistic attitudes were deeply entrenched in American society long before industrialization, and as a result drastic societal changes occurred. Also there was very little mention of Evangelicalism which we discussed in Southern Cross, which Gienapp(Sellers) believed played a vital role in the strengthening of capitalistic principles (245).
In reading Etan’s afterwards essay for last week’s conversation, I thought his point on the relationship of the past and the present is particularly relevant in this week’s readings as a direct result of the lack of concrete evidence for Davis and Ashworth and the more conceptual and abstract approach to uncovering the past. Although this week’s readings were different whereas each piece of scholarship was critiqued and answered with a rebuttal by the historians themselves, I feel as if it is another step in becoming more empathetic when looking at history and attempting to reveal the past. With last week’s readings on agency and capitalism, as well as past discussions on the use of language especially in Morgan’s American Slavery- American Freedom, we can attempt to synthesize these works relevant to the multiple viewpoints within this weeks reading and that should undoubtedly make for a concerted debate of our own.
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