Gavin Wright's Slavery and American Economic Development derives from his 1997 Fleming Lectures at Louisiana State University, and deals with a theme to which he has perceptively contributed for a long time. With judicious use of quantitative analysis, including 39 tables, figures, and maps, and detailed regression analysis, Wright carefully presents his view of the antebellum southern economy. From the start, I must confess to not being a disinterested party, as we have long debated these issues, although that has not detracted from our warm and mutually respectful relationship over the years.

Wright describes his book as representing “an effort at reframing several debates relating to the economics of slavery, emphasizing the economic concept of property rights, and the historical context of the onset of modern economic development in Europe and North America between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (p. ix). The former issue concerns Wright's wish to distinguish the analytic usefulness of describing the importance of property rights over slaves from those definitions that focus on slavery as primarily a form of labor relations and production methods. It was the property rights that permitted slaves to be purchased and sold, relocated by owners, and assigned to any task that the owner wished, among other aspects of control. Wright contends that the “apparent productivity performance of slave labor in the antebellum era may be attributed more aptly and consistently to property rights than to work organization and physical efficiency” (p. 122). While it might be argued that without property rights slavery would not be possible, presumably in the absence of the appropriate conditions for production and labor, the demand for these property rights might not exist. The second contention described in the preface represents a defense of both aspects of the Eric William thesis, with the early growth of the slave economy leading to economic growth in Europe and the Americas, but then a reduced economic importance of slave labor, making slavery an expendable institution, to be replaced by free labor. Wright concludes that, in general, Williams may have a correct conclusion regarding the relation between abolition and industrialization, but not precisely for a correct reason, because the affinity “may have been more curiously circuitous than he imagined” (p. 40). Wright contends that “one would have difficulty making a case that slavery had retarded economic progress in the South in the colonial era” (p. 57). But, he argues, measures of population growth and wealth in 1850 and 1860 indicate that in these antebellum years slavery had not only led to a relative (but apparently not absolute) worsening of the economic conditions of the South in this period, but also “that the roots of postbellum regional backwardness are plainly visible in the antebellum data” (p. 61). This theme of southern antebellum backwardness remains a central argument of Wright's analysis of the southern economy.

Wright's arguments on the southern economy are, however, not free of controversy. There are two general points to note about many scholarly debates. First, what appear to be disagreements about answers to questions often reflect rather the asking of different questions, which then can explain the differences in interpretation. Second, in long-standing debates, such as that over American slavery, there is often some convergence of belief on some issues. In the case of southern slavery, many of the currently agreed-upon set of interpretations represent a significant shift from the views that were predominant in the past. Thus Wright's depiction of the southern planters' search for profits, the variety of work undertaken by slaves, and many aspects of southern markets portray a view of the southern economy quite different from the earlier widely held views of Phillips and his students.

There are occasional puzzling aspects of Wright's descriptions of the late antebellum period. He correctly points out that because cotton is only a fraction of southern output, to focus on cotton alone in describing the southern economy is misleading. Yet he points to the “far above normal” level of cotton production and exports in 1860 (p. 92). There is no disagreement upon the high level of cotton output that year, but some debate as to whether this reflected input shifts, random movements, or other factors that might have reduced total southern production. Wright's principal new source concerning the high level of cotton output indicates that, for whatever reason, there was a relative shortfall in corn output that year. And in placing the South in world perspective Wright compares measures of regional wealth (not income) for the South with measures of relative incomes (not wealth) for other countries, a procedure that can pose some problems in ranking, particularly give the relatively narrow differences in a number of cases.

As always, Wright is very stimulating and provocative in presenting his views of antebellum southern economic change and in clearly providing specific hypotheses for the period. As with most important books, there is much to agree with and also various questions where disagreements remain. This reviewer looks forward with interest to further works of this most stimulating scholar.