[Cyrien]

I can't let the Fogel slide. Yes he has a nobel prize. But he is still an idiot. Having looked over his works and having given the math figures he uses to an accountant and asking the accountant what he thinks of this and having the accountant say if anyone ran their house this way they would be bankrupt... I can say that the slave system was not efficient despite what Fogel may say.

Fogel makes several key mistakes. First he uses only limited case samples of the very best top of the line self sufficient slave plantations in the south. This makes up less than about 1% of all of them. If I were to survey the top 1% in the United States and then draw conclusions on how efficient our modern economic system is I can assure you that it would be absolutly amazing. Ever met the man? If you attack his figures he doesn't defend them. He attacks you. One of the professors here at a seminar with Fogel where he was presenting his findings on the efficiencies of slavery questioned him on the use of the figures he used for the costs of operating the slave plantation. What did Fogel say? He called him a racist. The professor rightly got up and walked out as did several others. If you legitametly call someone on something in their research that seems to be in error and they can't defend themself except to call you a racist then their is something wrong.

I will admit to biase on my part against Fogel but that is all due to what I have seen of the slopiness or willfull blindness of his work and impressions on him himself. This is not a man I like and his work is slop, nobel prize or no.

You might say that his work is accepted in economic and historic circles, but that is certainly not the case. This is a case of someone who is good at self promotion and not the actual work. Several of his best known works have been heavily critisized by his peers and even discredited.

For me and many others any work that Fogel does is automatically tainted.

Oh yes... and those top 1% efficient slave works had a, according to Fogel, rate of profit just below that of the north at the same time. If you modify the figures based on historicaly proven data you get returns half that. For me the issue isn't what Fogels stance on how efficient slavery was. For me the issue is his methods and numbers. They just aren't credible.

[ May 16, 2003, 16:50: Message edited by: Cyrien ]