Question

How did southern culture and slavery make the confederates weaker than the union and more vulnerable to loss? Was southern culture truly capitalism by our standards today ?

Answer 1

1. They did not have factories like those in the North. They could not quickly make guns and other supplies that were needed. The South's lack of a railroad system was another weakness. In the South, a smaller industrial base, fewer rail lines, and an agricultural economy based upon slave labor made the mobilization of resources more difficult. As the war dragged on, the Union's advantages in factories, railroads, and manpower put the Confederacy at a great disadvantage.

2. The Southern economy is non-capitalistic and pre-bourgeoise; a pre-industrialized economy that struggled to thrive due to the lack of incentives imposed by slave labor, the absence of a legal framework that stimulated the emergence of capitalism and a backward, agriculture-based economy.