No, I don't think anyone is saying that. I have noticed only that certain developments of the Civil War era fed the excesses of the Gilded Age, which without the enabling of the Millocracy would nevertheless have occurred, but without the intensity of regional concentration of the benefits, and indeed without, perhaps, the particular distribution of gain and loss that in fact occurred. There would have been no Billion-Dollar Congress, no octopoidal railroad land-grants, perhaps no such abusive trusts as grew up under the war-fed grasping of John D. Rockefeller I and the railroading tycoonery of J.J. Hill, Pierpont Morgan, and Jay Gould.
I don't think one can tear oneself out of the surrounding context of history. One can't wall oneself off from technological development yet enjoy its benefits. One has to choose between ending slavery or tyranny and defending the local right to enslave and tyrannize -- sooner or later one has to choose.
False dichotomy. Misery or slavery, name your poison! You might concede that some good might have come of an agrarian victory in the Civil War, and that there might have been some substantial restraint, in at least part of the country, of the economic concentration and accelerating growth of social, economic, and political inequality that defined the Gilded Age. Timeclocks and the ignominious punching-in ceremony of worker debasement might have occurred in the deracinated parts of the country anyway, but mightn't Southern workers have happily escaped those deliberate humiliations?
I won't say that no one is ever convinced by these discussions. When I first came upon them, I was rather more sympathetic to the Confederates than to the Unionists. The evidence and arguments changed my mind. I suppose if I had stronger ties to the South or if I wanted to focus very narrowly on some things and exclude others, I wouldn't have been swayed. But given what I've found out and my way of looking at the world, it doesn't seem to me that secession was a good idea or that it could be have been a "right" under the Constitution, or that secession boded well for America.
Had things happened differently at mid century, it is likely that that later development would have been different. Perhaps fortunes -- and immiseration -- might have been less. I suppose it's possible that, like Canada, Australia or Iceland, we could have avoided the worst aspects of industrialism and piggybacked our way to modernity, letting others bear the greater costs of development. But it's by no means a certainty. And it is something that would have been harder for the South with its racial conflicts and other problems than the rest of the country. Had we taken a more Canadian path, there would still have been class conflicts and labor violence. It was unavoidable at the time. The price of taking a more human path might have been less development and more state social programs today.
You may want to separate out the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts from agrarian ruling classes as particularly brutal, but that's by no means a given either. Antebellum Southern planters and railroad builders who made use of slave labor, post-bellum Southern masters of mills and sharecroppers weren't soft touches by any means. "Mightn't Southern workers have happily escaped those deliberate humiliations" of time clocks and punching in? The short answer is no. Those who had would have been bypassed in favor of those who would put up with the indignities imposed on cheap labor: slaves, indentured workers or immigrants. Tight control over the labor force was a major feature of plantation economies and that wouldn't change.
It's hardly likely that we have time cards and punch in at work today because of a war long ago. Modernity is a global phenomenon. The Confederacy could hardly have escaped from it, though they might have shifted its burdens from some shoulders to others. Other countries which had nothing like our 1860s experience have adopted the modern office/factory work system.
I suppose it's possible that a victorious Confederacy might have been more "laid back" about its work habits -- at least for some people -- in the manner of other "tropical" or "Mediterranean" societies. But such laxness might well have meant less production and greater poverty and corruption. I suppose it might be nice to have more "European" society in some things, but it means taking "Europeanness" in other, and unpredicted things as well. To take Jefferson Davis to get Chirac or Jospin isn't a very appealing bargain, as few of us would want either Davis or Chirac or Jospin. It wasn't what people thought was at stake in 1860, nor was it the most likely outcome of the Civil War. So it looks a lot like slight of hand on your part.
I'd have to say: 1) what would have changed for the better would have been a marginal improvement, not unimportant, but less significant than you think and 2) what could have changed for the worse could have been very bad indeed. The system of "free labor" may look unfair or repressive or far from ideal, but had the other alternative -- slave labor -- suceeded things would have been worse. And while slavery might have been abolished at some point, it's less likely that Southern elites would easily give up the kind of control over their labor force that they'd come to expect.
You seem to have an overly rosy view of antebellum Southern life. It was no paradise. I'd be the first to concede, though, that the protectionist path followed after the war may well have been the wrong one. Perhaps Seymour or Tilden or Hancock would have made better Presidents than Grant or Hayes or Garfield. They may have had more dignity and rectitude. But they had their own blindnesses with respect to exploitation and brutality, and this was all the more true of 19th century Southern leaders.
Jefferson's view of liberty was influenced by the frontier experience. Those who were self-sufficient could be more truly free than those who were in any way dependent on others. There were also feudal elements in Jefferson's vision: for those who could command the obedience and unpaid labor of others could also have greater freedom that those who worked for wages or had to hire wage labor. So it doesn't seem to me that his ideal could have been realized. At best it would have become impossible as the country grew more crowded and people became more interdependent. At worst it would have saddled the country with a monstrous feudalism that countenanced the absolute bondage of many for the freedom of some. It might help if instead of looking at our condition as "half empty" you considered the ways in which it is "half full" and our real freedom has been enhanced over the centuries. Certainly it's doubtful that our fellow citizens would prefer frontier to suburban freedom.
You do raise some interesting questions, but for me, the return on effort expended has already begun to diminish, both on the agrarian question and other Civil War topics.