A simplistic look at American 19th Century history might summarize its politics and economy as a clash between two rival, starkly opposed, political cultures and economic bases: Yankee and Deep South, industrial versus agricultural. Of all the political cultures these two were the largest and among the most mobile. In the end Yankees proved more expansionist because Deep South migration was limited by the productive capacities of the soil demanded by its agricultural economic base. In this module I introduce and outline the pre-cotton evolution of the Deep South culture. The next module mini-series on the Rise of the Cotton Belt describes its subsequent evolution, fused and driven by an cotton-export economic base, that both changed and deepened its character and content.
The Deep South culture proved to be an almost polar opposite of the northern Yankee-Puritan culture in the Early Republic–and the two have been at bitter odds to the present day. Both in 1789 were overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, but industrial and finance capitalism developed from the northern political cultures. The Deep South culture, heavily rooted in agriculture and the late-medieval value system/society persisted carried over that nexus through to the Civil War–and even after.
During the Early Republic (called the antebellum years for the South) the United States contained two distinct dominant cultural systems and economic bases. During the Early Republic that cultural and economic chasm blocked an early attempt by the Federal government to play a major role in several critical economic development strategies. There was neither a cultural/political consensus that permitted that involvement, and the reality of two quite different regional economic bases, with different perspectives/needs on such vital strategies such as internal improvements and free or protected trade lent a zero-sum veneer to that debate. And then there was, of course, slavery.
Say it another way, the first eighty years of our American S&L ED history reflected the reality that ED did not mean the same thing in the North as it did in the South. At root was the profound differences in the political cultures that, reflecting their contrasting economic bases, produced different policy systems and desired different goals from ED strategies and programs. If the ultimate winner was the North and industrial/finance capitalism, that inevitably meant the loser, the South, would evolve along time lines and would experience different historical and economic legacies. That has exerted/inserted a huge legacy into our history–and the nation’s as well.
Over the course of time, the South evolved a different economic base and policy systems that produced distinctive styles of ED/CD. Population flows–in both directions (in and out)–further cemented a distinctive southern regional dynamic that shaped our state and local ED/CD history dramatically.
Regionalism became an enduring and crucial characteristic of American ED. It remains so today….
*
[Posted this first on the Republican Rubicon thread as it tells a broader story that started before the war between the states, first a bloody war then just bloody politics.]
Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
The compartmentalization of theories regarding cultural development, economic development, political science, and psychology can only be explained by a gross lack of interdisciplinary education.
Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
Of course if the aggregate of theories regarding cultural development, economic development, political science, and psychology were called sociology then no one with any great intelligence or earning potential would want to study it.
Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
Sociologically speaking then there is no such thing as an American nor a Chinese civilization. The native American civilization was conquered decisively by Europeans in the 17th century. By the middle of the 19th century there was virtually nothing left of native American civilization that had not been subjugated to European cultural domination, although more as prisoners of war than by assimilation. China was absorbed by the Mongol Empire in the 13th century leaving the memories of Confucianism, Han Buddhism, and Taoism far more intact than the pre-Mongol civil society that assimilation of those religious philosophies had engendered.
a friend who gets a food box from the salvation army once a month reports that the box he picked up yesterday “was real skimpy” compared to previous months, so when you all get through solving the world’s problems over here, a donation to your local food bank to make sure your neighbors have enough to eat over the holidays would be appreciated..
Ron (RC) Weakley (a.k.a., Darryl for a while at EV) says:
The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere was at 5:02 AM EST this morning. So, Joe will be POTUS in another month and the longest night is over.
Please check out the situation in your own community with regards to food banks as requested up thread by Rjs. We are lucky here in central VA to have Feed More. Central VA has enough poverty and homelessness to also have robust institutional arrangements which have been scaled up for the pandemic. Best thing is the ability to donate cash remotely instead of dropping off food.
http://journal.c2er.org/history/theme-3-b-the-deep-south-political-culture/
A simplistic look at American 19th Century history might summarize its politics and economy as a clash between two rival, starkly opposed, political cultures and economic bases: Yankee and Deep South, industrial versus agricultural. Of all the political cultures these two were the largest and among the most mobile. In the end Yankees proved more expansionist because Deep South migration was limited by the productive capacities of the soil demanded by its agricultural economic base. In this module I introduce and outline the pre-cotton evolution of the Deep South culture. The next module mini-series on the Rise of the Cotton Belt describes its subsequent evolution, fused and driven by an cotton-export economic base, that both changed and deepened its character and content.
The Deep South culture proved to be an almost polar opposite of the northern Yankee-Puritan culture in the Early Republic–and the two have been at bitter odds to the present day. Both in 1789 were overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, but industrial and finance capitalism developed from the northern political cultures. The Deep South culture, heavily rooted in agriculture and the late-medieval value system/society persisted carried over that nexus through to the Civil War–and even after.
During the Early Republic (called the antebellum years for the South) the United States contained two distinct dominant cultural systems and economic bases. During the Early Republic that cultural and economic chasm blocked an early attempt by the Federal government to play a major role in several critical economic development strategies. There was neither a cultural/political consensus that permitted that involvement, and the reality of two quite different regional economic bases, with different perspectives/needs on such vital strategies such as internal improvements and free or protected trade lent a zero-sum veneer to that debate. And then there was, of course, slavery.
Say it another way, the first eighty years of our American S&L ED history reflected the reality that ED did not mean the same thing in the North as it did in the South. At root was the profound differences in the political cultures that, reflecting their contrasting economic bases, produced different policy systems and desired different goals from ED strategies and programs. If the ultimate winner was the North and industrial/finance capitalism, that inevitably meant the loser, the South, would evolve along time lines and would experience different historical and economic legacies. That has exerted/inserted a huge legacy into our history–and the nation’s as well.
Over the course of time, the South evolved a different economic base and policy systems that produced distinctive styles of ED/CD. Population flows–in both directions (in and out)–further cemented a distinctive southern regional dynamic that shaped our state and local ED/CD history dramatically.
Regionalism became an enduring and crucial characteristic of American ED. It remains so today….
*
[Posted this first on the Republican Rubicon thread as it tells a broader story that started before the war between the states, first a bloody war then just bloody politics.]
The compartmentalization of theories regarding cultural development, economic development, political science, and psychology can only be explained by a gross lack of interdisciplinary education.
Of course if the aggregate of theories regarding cultural development, economic development, political science, and psychology were called sociology then no one with any great intelligence or earning potential would want to study it.
We have both microeconomics and macroeconomics. Could there be both a micro-sociology and a macro-sociology?
OK, way to kill a thread then :<)
Sociologically speaking then there is no such thing as an American nor a Chinese civilization. The native American civilization was conquered decisively by Europeans in the 17th century. By the middle of the 19th century there was virtually nothing left of native American civilization that had not been subjugated to European cultural domination, although more as prisoners of war than by assimilation. China was absorbed by the Mongol Empire in the 13th century leaving the memories of Confucianism, Han Buddhism, and Taoism far more intact than the pre-Mongol civil society that assimilation of those religious philosophies had engendered.
a friend who gets a food box from the salvation army once a month reports that the box he picked up yesterday “was real skimpy” compared to previous months, so when you all get through solving the world’s problems over here, a donation to your local food bank to make sure your neighbors have enough to eat over the holidays would be appreciated..
The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere was at 5:02 AM EST this morning. So, Joe will be POTUS in another month and the longest night is over.
Please check out the situation in your own community with regards to food banks as requested up thread by Rjs. We are lucky here in central VA to have Feed More. Central VA has enough poverty and homelessness to also have robust institutional arrangements which have been scaled up for the pandemic. Best thing is the ability to donate cash remotely instead of dropping off food.
https://rvamag.com/eatdrink/central-virginia-food-bank-provides-hunger-relief-during-pandemic.html