Free wage labor was not the basis of early American capitalist development

Evidence

First, colonial America was characterized by an abundance of land and by scarce supplies of labor: The extensive Western frontier and the ease of entry into craft and artisan production thinned the labor supply up to the turn of the twentieth century. Thus free labor was not the basis of early capitalist development in North America. Over half of the white colonists during the first century of settlement were indentured servants. Black slav­ ery added enormously to the labor supply: At the time of the Civil War, over one-third of the Southern population were slaves. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 612

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the common Whig picture that America was founded on free labor; parallels Black Marxism’s account of coerced labor undergirding capitalist expansion. — connects to: Pre-industrial populations untransformed into wage labor might industrialize differently. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 221; Capitalist economic choice was coercive, not genuinely free. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 100; Immigration and the cash nexus created America’s wage-labor force — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 613
• SHARE: Send to anyone interested in American economic history — the stat that most white colonial settlers were indentured servants surprises people.

Broader Connections

• Pre-industrial populations untransformed into wage labor might industrialize differently. #qualifies (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 221
• Capitalist economic choice was coercive, not genuinely free. #corroborates (0.72) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 100