| As economic conditions change, so too do economic ideas. Using this familiar theme in the history of economic thought, we re-examine a set of northern economic ideas and a set of southern economic ideas during the period 1800 to 1840 in the United States by focusing on how the economic surplus was expanded and its uses changed. During this period, merchant-industrial capitalists became more numerous in the North, thereby facilitating changes in the way in which the economic surplus was expanded and used in that region. Planter capitalists in the South, gaining in importance in the southern economy, sought ways to expand the economic surplus by promoting access to increasing amounts of land, expanding supplies of slave labor, and expanding international markets. In this dissertation we study eight writers, four representative of each of these dominant socio-economic groups. We evaluate a set of expectations about these economic writings based on an analysis of the economic transformations of the time. In evaluating these hypotheses, we seek insights into the influences of economic transformations on economic ideas and, consequently, on conflicting views as to the direction of national economic policy between the years 1800-1840. For the writers in the North that we examined, increasing the size of the labor force and changing its uses caused a growth in the wealth of the nation. This required the national government to promote manufacturing, to protect markets, and to use its powers to mobilize resources and develop national markets. For the writers in the South that we examined, expanding exchangeable value through expanding markets was the key to expanding wealth. Thus, they focused on the process of exchange, supported expanding international markets, and supported using markets to allocate resources as major ways to expand the economy. Consequently, these writers attacked national economic policies that fostered the redistribution of economic power, income, and wealth by promoting the expansion of manufacturing. We conclude that the transformations of economic conditions, their impact on the major socio-economic groups, and changes in economic ideas representative of the interests of those groups can be linked by examining how increases in the size and changes in the uses of the surplus above necessary subsistence affected the different groups and, consequently, their interests. |
