” a reactionary two-tier state of masters and serfs “
One of the more ignorant descriptions of the ante-bellum South. This really does sound just like what Karl Marx wrote about the South from his perch in London in the 1860s. Class warfare drivel, in which you’d think there was only the planter class and slaves with no one else. Makes you wonder where VDH thinks all of those confederate soldiers came from.
Well I can assure you the wealthy arrogant plantation class or the Cotton Kings back then, (Read Apple, Silicon Valley in CA today) had no desire to create or build an industrial middle class. They were all about being the elites, in total control of the uneducated serfs.
Regardless of what your position is, there are a lot of similarities the author brought up here.