But it is clear you would rather pretend that the money component of the civil war didn't exist, because it bangs on your preferred world view.
So the real number was the top <1% owned the means of production for 50% of US exports, cotton.
You said that earlier, and so I suppose we are to believe that the other 99% of the Southern population were manikins or something that had no role in producing that output.
One would have thought that the other 99% would eventually get annoyed that only 1% was getting all the money.
Nonsense, all wars have economic components, again, consider the Second World War, plenty of economic motives to go around.
But no free nation went to war strictly over economics, there were always other higher issues involved, sometimes even contrary to economic interests.
The US specifically did not enter WWII until attacked at Pearl Harbor.
Likewise the Union did not respond militarily until...
DiogenesLamp: "You said that earlier, and so I suppose we are to believe that the other 99% of the Southern population were manikins or something that had no role in producing that output."
So, by that same logic, do you suppose other states were just "manikins or something that had no role in producing that output"??
How about the people who produced the $200 million per year in Northern products "exported" to the South so the South could focus its energies on cotton, etc.?
Wouldn't you say they too had a role?
DiogenesLamp: "One would have thought that the other 99% would eventually get annoyed that only 1% was getting all the money."
Or that Northern states which produced $200 million per year for Southerners might "get annoyed" at being told "only the South" produced all of America's wealth??
Point is: your claim that 1/4 of the citizens ("the South") produced 80% of US exports is ludicrous.