Why do people assume the Confederacy will liberalize post-war?

[BlueTrousers]

In Victorian England? What languages were they speaking?

In England, not too many. In Austria-Hungary, or Prussia, or Italy, or even parts of the United States, probably at least two. Heck, even in Scotland, bilingual speakers of English and Gaelic were (and still are) common in Glasgow.

Multilingualism isn't the weird flex those of us who have the global lingua franca as a mother tongue think it is. If you're raised in an environment where you need to speak two or three languages to get along, it's pretty normal.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

In England, not too many. In Austria-Hungary, or Prussia, or Italy, or even parts of the United States, probably at least two. Heck, even in Scotland, bilingual speakers of English and Gaelic were (and still are) common in Glasgow.

Multilingualism isn't the weird flex those of us who have the global lingua franca as a mother tongue think it is. If you're raised in an environment where you need to speak two or three languages to get along, it's pretty normal.

The original point I was responding to said that speaking multiple languages is necessary in manufacturing. If England, the "workshop of the world", which pioneered the Industrial Revolution and was the most industrialised country on earth for most of the nineteenth century, had little multilingualism, then this rather blows the argument out of the water.

 

[Whiteshore]

And they did use industrial slavery before and during the ACW for profit, I see no reason why the historical instances wouldn't be replicated once the demand is there.

Especially as Nazi Germany with “undesirables” and “guest labor”, Imperial Japan with Chinese peasants in Manchuria being turned into industrial slaves in all but name (which would be the best equivalent IMO for the use of slave labor in an industrialized Confederacy), and the USSR with gulag inmates provide good OTL precedents for industrialized slavery in a lasting CSA.

 

[Mildtryth]

The original point I was responding to said that speaking multiple languages is necessary in manufacturing. If England, the "workshop of the world", which pioneered the Industrial Revolution and was the most industrialised country on earth for most of the nineteenth century, had little multilingualism, then this rather blows the argument out of the water.

Looking back at these earlier posts, they said nothing of the sort. The post you responded to only said "some degree of education in language", which by no means implies multilingualism, since it's perfectly possible for one to be uneducated on their own language...

 

[Baron Bizarre]

Considering the difficulty that the Union had (and some might say still has) in "re-absorbing" the Confederacy IOTL, I think that it's possible that some of us might be underestimating the difficulty that it might have had in "re-absorbing" a Confederacy that had been independent for a generation or more.

 

[Karl der Große]

Considering the difficulty that the Union had (and some might say still has) in "re-absorbing" the Confederacy IOTL, I think that it's possible that some of us might be underestimating the difficulty that it might have had in "re-absorbing" a Confederacy that had been independent for a generation or more.

Probably it goes hand in hand with the common revenge fantasy in which all Confederate officers and politicians are executed for treason. That would somehow presumably terrorize the common citizenry into becoming pro-Union fanatics.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

The Republic of Texas and the Republic of Louisiana would walk away by 1910, once oil money started flowing. This would further worsen the CSA's already abysmal finances, and set the remaining states at each other's throats, as boll weevil infestation destroys their cotton industry.

 

[jmc247]

This is an almost impossible to answer question because everything depends on how it comes about and also what you mean by liberalize. The most plausible way for them to not lose is for Washington to let the Cotton States go in which case it’s half a CSA and also not likely to centralize easily or move to touch slavery as an institution.

The late war South was a very different animal with a centralizing government and having to start to make compromises with the institution of slavery that they knew would doom it.

 

[Kerney]

I would say if anything this community goes toward the other extreme. Thinking one of the most literate and economically developed (even during slave era South was quite financially complex by non-North standards) parts of the world would become an economic basket case. Poorer than the Union? 100%. Poorer than OTL? Possibly especially if independence comes after a long war. Worse than a weak great power or a true banana republic? Quite unlikely.

I think this is something that has to do with these boards and RW politics. Most members, dare I say, are bigots against the Confederacy and the RW political strains that are related to the Confederacy. I won't go further lest we get into RW politics. But when you're bigoted, you tend to look down upon, dismiss, and underestimate their abilities. We assume that they 'can't do any better' because they are 'just that way' and blinded.

Rather like Southerners underestimated the abilities of black people, I think on some level we look at Alt Confederates as constrained by our dislike of them. This is in no way saying the Confederate cause was good and fine.

I'm just saying we, as humans, have a human failing to underestimate what we despise.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Looking back at these earlier posts, they said nothing of the sort. The post you responded to only said "some degree of education in language", which by no means implies multilingualism, since it's perfectly possible for one to be uneducated on their own language...

"Education in language" would normally imply a foreign language. Granted it doesn't have to, but then most factory work doesn't generally require any language education beyond what you get from speaking it in general.

I think this is something that has to do with these boards and RW politics. Most members, dare I say, are bigots against the Confederacy and the RW political strains that are related to the Confederacy. I won't go further lest we get into RW politics. But when you're bigoted, you tend to look down upon, dismiss, and underestimate their abilities. We assume that they 'can't do any better' because they are 'just that way' and blinded.

It's the AH.com equivalent of "Of course we'll win! One Southerner can whoop ten Yankees!"

 

[Raferty]

The Confederacy had undergone immense mobilization and social and political transformation in its effort to win the war. It was by far the most leviathan and centralized gvt of any state in North America until the New Deal.

It's quite conceivable with those precedents set that it would take a liberal turn - it's state power was such that this could be plausible from the standpoint of bureaucratic interest group theory

It was far more liberal in its trade policy than the US was, for example, which was a protectionist power. Frankly, liberalization means many things, not just "black people, good or bad?"

It could also go the other way entirely.

 

[Band in China]

The Confederacy had undergone immense mobilization and social and political transformation in its effort to win the war. It was by far the most leviathan and centralized gvt of any state in North America until the New Deal.

It's quite conceivable with those precedents set that it would take a liberal turn - it's state power was such that this could be plausible from the standpoint of bureaucratic interest group theory

It could also go the other way entirely.

Then point to precedence, things don't happen by dice rolls they build momentum over time.

 

[Don Corleone]

I think this is something that has to do with these boards and RW politics. Most members, dare I say, are bigots against the Confederacy and the RW political strains that are related to the Confederacy. I won't go further lest we get into RW politics. But when you're bigoted, you tend to look down upon, dismiss, and underestimate their abilities. We assume that they 'can't do any better' because they are 'just that way' and blinded.

Rather like Southerners underestimated the abilities of black people, I think on some level we look at Alt Confederates as constrained by our dislike of them. This is in no way saying the Confederate cause was good and fine.

I'm just saying we, as humans, have a human failing to underestimate what we despise.

It might be the opposite at work - people think the planter class is Buff Doge. They'll be able to maintain the world of 1859 forever, and overcome any and all internal and external pressures without making the slightest concession.

It's certainly possible that they could hold out to the present day or become even worse, but it would require everything going in their favor. Along the lines of drawing an inside straight.

 

[Karl der Große]

It might be the opposite at work - people think the planter class is Buff Doge. They'll be able to maintain the world of 1859 forever, and overcome any and all internal and external pressures without making the slightest concession.

It's certainly possible that they could hold out to the present day or become even worse, but it would require everything going in their favor. Along the lines of drawing an inside straight.

Unless I'm misremembering, nobody in this thread has said anything remotely similar. The most charitable anyone has been is something like "it won't be a banana republic, it will be more advanced than most nations in the world", which doesn't imply at all (almost the opposite) that the planters remain dominant.

 

[Don Corleone]

Unless I'm misremembering, nobody in this thread has said anything remotely similar. The most charitable anyone has been is something like "it won't be a banana republic, it will be more advanced than most nations in the world", which doesn't imply at all (almost the opposite) that the planters remain dominant.

I mean lot of people assume the CSA wouldn't change much if at all. The premise of the thread it wouldn't liberalize.

But that requires overcoming a lot of internal and external pressures.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

It might be the opposite at work - people think the planter class is Buff Doge. They'll be able to maintain the world of 1859 forever, and overcome any and all internal and external pressures without making the slightest concession.

Admittedly I haven't done a proper survey, but the impression I get is that most posters here think that the planter class will try to maintain the world of 1859, fail, and get overthrown somehow.

 

[Raferty]

Admittedly I haven't done a proper survey, but the impression I get is that most posters here think that the planter class will try to maintain the world of 1859, fail, and get overthrown somehow.

One thing I'm not seeing acknowledged much is that in a CSA victory, it's not like this would be costless, unless it ended after Bull Run, in terms of the planters. Most were ruined by the war itself, the ones left by the postwar economic malaise and epidemics of the 1880s, or from collapsed demand. A southern victory in 1864 means that the invasion of the Delta and Lower Mississippi still happened, as did coastal incursions across the South. This was ruinous for planters, immediately. Many became internal refugees and lost all wealth that was not liquid. The planters also, despite what the stereotype was about a rich mans war and a poor man's fight, etc, served the CSA in disproportionate numbers at all ranks but especially as junior officers, which suffered horrific casualties in the war in battle. Gallagher's book demonstrates this but it's important to note what chaos this caused for inheritance, land claims, and estate consolidation. A lot of property was lost from war related deaths and split among relatives who couldn't maintain it with their existing capital pool.


The planters were not a monolith either. The biggest ones were mostly ex-Whigs who didn't favor secession, at least at first, until a binary choice was put to them. Most of the rank and file fire eaters and secession friendly elites were fundamentally second rank in the social sphere - ambitious lawyers and politicians, and smaller planters who were being squeezed by high slave prices in the 1850s and difficult export markets.

I don't think they'd retain much power for long in the CSA, which would likely develop a political elite tied close to the army, an institution with more varied social backgrounds at the top

 

[Rickdukulous Rex]

It's basically Whig history. The Confederacy has to liberalize because they just *have* to. In fact the Confederate constitution was so dysfunctional I can't see the system lasting more than a generation at most.

 

[boredviewer1234]

I think this argument towards Liberalisation make sense when you consider one Liberalism is a massive spectrum but people tend to use the word liberalize so can mean anything from slaves slightly more protections to wholescale abolishment of slavery often with carrots going alongside it,

Two, I think their is a bit of....moral bias the right term? Fair amount of people want the CSA to collapse/be illegitimate and one way of doing that is to make one of if not the main reasons the CSA fought worthless they would have to get rid of slavery on their own. The idea of millions of people in chains in the South for potentially forever or least decades with no light in the tunnel is just to grotesque to consider.

 

[DG Valdron]

Two, I think their is a bit of....moral bias the right term? Fair amount of people want the CSA to collapse/be illegitimate and one way of doing that is to make one of if not the main reasons the CSA fought worthless they would have to get rid of slavery on their own. The idea of millions of people in chains in the South for potentially forever or least decades with no light in the tunnel is just to grotesque to consider.

I think that there's also a reaction to Turtledovism and to a lot of popular fiction like Bring on the Jubilee, etc., which tends to consistently depict a successful Confederacy asa a powerhouse.