Kettell's argument is akin to saying that the American economy is dependent on Saudi Arabia and exploitative -- that American wealth is the illegitimate product of Saudi oil. In fact, dependence cuts both ways. We provide goods and services to Saudi Arabia in exchange for their oil. Dependence is mutual and a country that produces a variety of goods and services are in a better position than the Saudis who have only oil.
In fact, Kettell was an economist that published reputable journals, books, and magazines. Colwell was a pamphleteer, and not an economist.
Colwell was a distinguished and respected writer on economics, as well as a successful businessman. Kettell was a journalist and editor -- a pamphleteer, in other words -- who wrote on economics. Neither man had an academic chair.
I doubt anybody would seriously say that one Kettell, the editorialist and controversialist, was a great economist and Colwell was a hack, though the opposite view might legitimately be argued. It's also worth noting that Kettell went on to write a history of the Civil War that doesn't reflect his earlier view by any means.
In fact Colwell was a socialist, writing against the free enterprise South.
Slavery is freedom?
"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength?"
You must really loathe free markets to identify them with slavery.
you’ve never read Orwell, have you...?
“You must really loathe free markets to identify them with slavery.”
Apparently he has not read Mr. Colwell’s pamphlet page 22 where he refers to Southern agriculture as has “...taken its present shape by the free choice of those concerned it it. So far as it has taken form in this country, it is the offspring of the most perfect free trade in the world”.
Since Mr. Colwell’s pamphlet reflects that position, his work must also be discounted.