Human Capital: Valuing Lives and Labor in the Slaveholding South

Professor Caitlin Rosenthal of the Department of History at UC Berkeley will give a talk based on her recent book, Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Accounting for Slavery is a unique contribution to the decades-long effort to understand New World slavery’s complex relationship with American capitalism. The study explores the development of quantitative management practices on West Indian and Southern plantations, illuminating the managerial practices of slaveholders. These include building sophisticated organizational structures, depreciating enslaved capital, and even practicing an early form of scientific management. Slaveholders subjected enslaved people to experiments, allocating and reallocating labor from crop to crop, planning meals and lodging, and carefully recording daily productivity. The incentive strategies they crafted offered rewards but also threatened brutal punishment. Contrary to narratives that depict slavery as a barrier to innovation, Accounting for Slavery explains how elite planters turned their power over enslaved people into a productivity advantage. Please email polecon@fas.harvard.edu for more information on event location.