No, I mean the families that owned the means of production, farms, processing, factories
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The means of production included those slaves, John. The profits that “southern producing class” generated utilized that particular means of production in large measure. I know you are smart enough to understand that.
You’re just being silly. Slaves for the time are equivalent to computers today. They were a tool for multiplying effort. That they were actually human beings doesn’t change their economic benefit.
The producing class then, as now, is those who own and control the means of production.
Don’t need an economic lecture. Slaves were labor capital in those days and legally considered property.Not saying this was right, but this forms the basis for the “reparations” crowd who will gladly jump on any bandwagon regardless of their heritage. Any comparison of the economic systems of north vs. south has to attribute slavery in the “GDP” if you will. Later, of course, we all became wage slaves to the oligarchs- those who couldn’t hang on to our family businesses. Have no respect at all for unionists and progressives. They are still at it, enslaving us all.