I stopped reading The Economist decades ago when they were publishing rubbish from their American correspondent suggesting that Bill Clinton had been running Arkansas like Peron ran Argentina. The only conclusion was that if they couldn’t even get the United States right, why should I believe whatever they were “reporting” about Indonesia, Romania or even the real Argentina.
The thing about that review is the tiny print at the top: “From the print edition”. Anything that goes into the print edition of a major magazine goes through a full editorial process. So yeah, The Economist can say “Oops, we goofed”, but in actuality the original writer and then separate content and copy editors found this piece to be perfectly acceptable originally.
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MOre LIBrul REVisionIST HIStory: SLAVery BUilt AmericA instead OF Our American EXCEPtionalism, SLAVerY waS bAD, BLACks Were VICTims of SLAVery. DuriNG SLaverY, BLAck PEOple had FULL empLOYment wiTH beNEfits lIKE food AND clOTHEs ANd SHelTER. NOW theY doN’t WORK and STILL get FOOD and CLOthes AND ShelTEr: SNAP, SectiON 8, WELFARE checks.
WHERE’s the FAIRneSS and BALAnce!!!11!11!one11!!!111
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"The publication said that it was “withdrawing the review,” but included a link to the original text “in the interests of transparency.”
In the interests of transparency, why don’t they reveal who wrote the “unbylined review”?
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If slavery “fueled America’s rise to economic dominance”, then why didn’t Brazil, which had a far more extensive system of slavery than the US ever did and didn’t free them until even later, become a greater economic power than the US?
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The publication said that it was “withdrawing the review,” but included a link to the original text “in the interests of transparency.”
That’s… actually not a bad way to handle it.
I’m a professor of American history. Like virtually anyone else with my job, one of the points I make in talking about slavery is that, as bad as it was, it didn’t turn its victims totally and entirely into joyless, miserable wretches who had no meaning whatsoever in their lives. In other words, enslaved African-Americans didn’t stop being humans, didn’t stop thinking about their condition, weren’t successfully forced to accept it purely on the terms it was offered, and so forth.
But there’s always the one kid who hears me say that and thinks, “Oh, what a relief to hear a professor agreeing with my uncle that slaves were happy!”
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The mask slipped and the ugly truth peered out. You would be hard pressed to find a more overt demonstration than this review of the myth of civilization and how thin of a veneer it truly is.
The true banality of evil is not in a measured, thoughtful and full-knowing crime; but in the self-deluded rationalization that your monstrous action or inaction could be twisted into some sort of benevolent gift.
Nothing has more potential for evil than the demon who sees an angel in the mirror.
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Yes, but what happened to the anonymous writer and the Editor(s) who published the piece?
Probably nothing.
But see the brilliant, hilarious responses on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23economistbookreviews&src=tyah
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Because they’re British, that’s why.
See also Disney’s objective documentary, Song of the South. [/sarcasm]
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In this climate, expect a reboot soon!
Shorter version: The Economist is right!
And who edited it, and what (if anything at all) was done to/with them.
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Sigh.
Shorter Frankly_my_dear: “Incest has been around for a long time, too, which totally makes it not as bad as people say.”
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Do you want to give a REAL apology, you stupid motherfuckers? Tell us the name of the “anonymous” author who is too much of a pussy to state his views. That jagoff should not be allowed to write anything but lyrics to toilet paper jingles.
People like this author always like to bitch about how their First Amendment rights are being violated whenever they are criticized for sticking their bunion-infested feet in their mouths, but this person doesn’t even have the balls to sign his or her fucking name. Coward.
The Economist starts out with the usual defense of slavery as a good thing “Our Peculiar Institution”. Which was intended to gloss over the contradictions between: legal slavery and the Constitution and free labor and capitalism. This defense also advocated the proper separation of the races, white ingenuity and black labor.
You know you are reactionary when you find yourself in bed with John C. Calhoun and must apologize. However, the encounter will always resonate with the “Blue Bloods” who really believe in their peculiar institutions.
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No, I think it was more “don’t blame it just on white people”.
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Its not the specifics of the review that are the problem. Its the fact that the tone so precisely matches the case made by current apologists for segregation. The review reads like it was written by Charles Murray, carefully crafted to slip in some racist drivel.
Faced with a vast amount of evidence that improvements in productivity of the slaves came from treating them worse the reviewer attacks the author for not considering the possibility that the increase might have been due to treating them better. That is the sure sign of a mind that refuses to abandon a deeply held belief and will cling to any invented notion to preserve it.
But the book author and the reviewer are both wrong when it comes to the central thesis of the book, that modern US capitalism is built on the legacy of slavery. It wasn’t slavery that made the US a major power in the early years because the US was not a major power. The US did not play in the top leagues until after the civil war. And the capital amassed by the Southern states was utterly irrelevant in the long term because the economy of the South was completely destroyed by the war.
It wasn’t ingenuity, pioneer spirit or any other pablum that made early America rich either. It was stealing land from native Americans and stealing labor from slaves.
Yankee ingenuity only really took hold during and after the civil war. When we talk about Yankee ingenuity we are generally thinking about Edison and Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford and their contemporaries. There are American engineers before that date of course, but none that would rank with Stephenson or Brunel. Franklin was an inventor but a chair that turns into a stepladder is nowhere near as consequential as the steam engine.
After the civil war and the abolition of slavery, everything changes. In less than two decades the US goes from being an industrial backwater to being the global technology center.
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Because that would involve reading the articles before they are printed instead of just running them through spellcheck.
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