Your idea was that it's all about money (and if it's not it's about power and ego).
That's when it comes to Abraham Lincoln and people from New York City.
But for you, the Confederates are choirboys, saintly types who never do anything out of self-interest.
Grow up and educate yourself.
If it were less profitable to do it some other way, what need for protectionist laws and tariffs? Do not their very existence serve as proof that costs would have been cut without them?
Tariffs were low after 1846. Southern states didn't have a legitimate grievance over existing tariff rates. And secessionists in Congress didn't care about the new Morrill rates, because they pulled out of Congress, rather than fight the rate hikes.
Two things you leave out of the picture:
1) The CSA was going to tax exports. This would make their cotton more expensive and encourage foreign processors to seek other sources.
It would also mean more of them money from cotton exports would end up in the pockets of the government, rather than those plantation owners you care so much about. Net result: less money for private investment in productive industry.
Government could well have played a larger role in the new CSA's economy than it did in the US economy. That was the case under Jefferson Davis's "war socialism" but it could conceivably have been the case even without war.
2) Confederate tariffs would apply to all imports from the United States. In practice, this would mean that Southerners in the CSA would pay more in tariffs, not less.
I know you want to think that American goods were junk in comparison to what came from Europe, but consumers, North and South, didn't think that way.
CSA products would have to pay US tariffs if sold in US markets. European goods imported through the CSA would have to pay two tariffs if sold in the US. The US was internally a free trade zone that encouraged industry. Cut it into two or more pieces and industries would have smaller home markets and fewer opportunities to show a profit.
I only know this being true of backward third world countries. I don't know of any western style countries that did worse on their own.
Educate yourself, or if you can't find some one who will.
Why did some societies become "backward third world countries"?
Why did Argentina, a country settled largely by Europeans and one of the richest countries in the world at one point, become "backward" and "third world"? By thinking they'd become fabulously wealthy if they cut out the middlemen.
Why did Russia, again a rapidly developing economy before the revolution eventually become an basket case? Why did non-White China and Japan become such great economic successes? Where were countries like Italy and Spain economically just a few generations back and where would they be without the EU?
Use your head -- if you can. It wasn't written in stone that some countries would be rich and others poor. Good and bad policy choices and opportunities made a difference. You can't pronounce it as dogma that the Confederacy would be an economic success, especially since cotton prices would eventually come down.
But of course, nothing anybody says will ever convince you ...
It's about both.
But for you, the Confederates are choirboys, saintly types who never do anything out of self-interest.
You mistake me. I have little doubt that the wealthy of Charleston would have became the exact same sort of pretentious Controlling bastards that we now have running the country from New York. I make no claim that they are morally superior to the robber barons of New York, I think people are people, and they will always behave like people.
My point here is that they were exercising a right to self determination, while the Northerners were trying to suppress their right of self determination. The boundary line at determining fault is based on who was trying to oppress who. The Southerners were not trying to invade New York, or any other Northern territory. They were no threat to the United States, and they should have been left alone to seek whatever form of government they wished, even if they were a bunch of evil bastards.
One's right to self determination is not based on a subjective standard of "evil." It exists for any group of people, even people with whom we disagree.
Tariffs were low after 1846. Southern states didn't have a legitimate grievance over existing tariff rates.
Tariffs were just part of their problem. Various laws passed by the Northern coalition had jiggered trade so that it all went through New York, and according to one of BroJoeK's sources, 40% of that income was siphoned off as a consequence. Usage of the word "tariffs" minimizes the larger economic picture. It was bigger than just the losses caused by tariffs.
1) The CSA was going to tax exports. This would make their cotton more expensive and encourage foreign processors to seek other sources.
You can only claim that it would make it more expensive by giving us some numbers, and comparing it to the losses caused by the taxation of imports and the cost to the South of all the trade going through New York. (where investors were also getting profits.)
You can't make a blanket statement that because they were going to tax exports, this would have made cotton more expensive than what they already had with the Union. That is highly unlikely. Even with a tax on exports, they would have likely had significantly reduced costs elsewhere, and significantly reduced taxes on the things their money would buy from Europe.
Once again, you are trying to take a small piece of the picture, and make it into the entire story without taking into account the other bits.
It would also mean more of them money from cotton exports would end up in the pockets of the government, ...
This is true. Taxes put money in the pockets of the government, but it is a necessary evil if one is to have a government.
rather than those plantation owners...
That is non sequitur. The fact that they are getting taxed does not necessarily mean they will have less money in their pockets. They were already getting taxed on the back end from import tariffs, so putting it on the front end (exports) will only cost them money in their pockets if the tax rate exceeded that which they were already paying on the back end.
I think their taxes would have come out cheaper over all, and I also think their cost of doing business would have become dramatically cheaper when they could use foreign shipping to carry their trade, and when they didn't have to drop off profits in New York.
... you care so much about.
And here you are throwing another nasty ad hominem at me. No, I don't care about wealthy plantation owners. I merely recognize that they had a right to do what they wanted, even if they were evil @$$holes.
2) Confederate tariffs would apply to all imports from the United States. In practice, this would mean that Southerners in the CSA would pay more in tariffs, not less.
I very greatly doubt that. I think you are just throwing out another non sequitur in the hopes I won't notice that your claim has no underlying support.
Why did Argentina, a country settled largely by Europeans and one of the richest countries in the world at one point, become "backward" and "third world"? By thinking they'd become fabulously wealthy if they cut out the middlemen.
I've never heard "Socialism" referred to as "middlemen" before. Argentina at one time had something like the third most powerful economy in the World, and then the fools voted in Socialism, and it all went to sh*t.
Why did Russia, again a rapidly developing economy before the revolution eventually become an basket case?
Why did Russia, a rapidly developing economy before the revolution, eventually become a basket case?
Um, I'll take Communist revolutions for $1,000 Alex! Seriously, I can't believe you asked that question, and on a conservative website to boot!
Why did non-White China and Japan become such great economic successes?
Uh, Capitalism? (Of course China went through a *LONG* period of terrible economic depression while they were Communist.)
You can't pronounce it as dogma that the Confederacy would be an economic success, especially since cotton prices would eventually come down.
Sure they would have eventually come down, but what do you suppose would have happened to all that capital that would have been created before that happened?
Do you think people would just put it in the bank and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck? You would have to be a spectacularly stupid sort of rich man to let money do nothing but sit in a bank.
That money would have gotten invested, and those investments would have paid dividends into the future. The entire social/economic structure would have been raised as a consequence of capital and investment created by that larger flow of money into their system.