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I understand it was closer to 4 billion$, but don’t have the source just now.

That shows how heavily the slave power was invested in slavery. And they pretend that the war started for what?

And recognize that the elimination of chattel slavery didn’t kill the slaves. The productive power that existed before the war was still there. Probably the industrious former slaves could increase their education and productivity.

For the investors in slave property, it must have been very painful to no longer be able to profit from that species of misery.

And they pretend that the war started for what?

You know: Economics.

economics plural of ec·o·nom·ics (Noun)

Noun

1. The branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.

2. The condition of a region or group as regards material prosperity.

3. Slavery.

I’ve seen the $4B number tossed about, but I doubt its accuracy.

There were about 4M slaves, and $4B would require an average price of $1000. My understanding is that is more than a little high, so I use $750 instead.

Here’s a really interesting article about slave prices. It points out that comparing prices from one period to another is intrinsically challenging, but using three possible ways of doing so, the $500 average price of a slave in 1850 equates to somewhere between $11,000 and $162,000 today.

http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php

I don’t think people realize what happened in the South when the slaves were freed. The South had been investing its capital into slaves for many decades, and all of that capital - as capital - suddenly disappeared. Couldn’t be used as collateral for a loan or any other purpose.

So while the productive capacity of the region, deducting of course for the immense physical damage caused by the war, was perhaps theoretically higher, decades of capital accumulation had disappeared.

Think of the financial pain caused by the slight decline in wealth caused by our recent housing bubble burst. I have seen figures of perhaps 5% loss in national wealth, much higher of course for many individuals.

When the slaves were freed, the South lost perhaps 1/3 or more of its prewar capital.