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Accounting for Slavery

Masters and Management

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Accounting for Slavery

By: Caitlin Rosenthal
Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
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About this listen

The story of modern management generally looks to the factories of England and New England for its genesis. But after scouring through old accounting books, Caitlin Rosenthal discovered that Southern planter-capitalists practiced an early form of scientific management. They took meticulous notes, carefully recording daily profits and productivity, and subjected their slaves to experiments and incentive strategies comprised of rewards and brutal punishment. Challenging the traditional depiction of slavery as a barrier to innovation, Accounting for Slavery shows how elite planters turned their power over enslaved people into a productivity advantage. The result is a groundbreaking investigation of business practices in Southern and West Indian plantations and an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery's relationship with capitalism.

©2018 the President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2022 Tantor Americas Economic History Economics United States Management Capitalism
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Rosenthal’s work brings together many previously disparate histories of slavery, work and management and at the same time suggests ways out of historiographical debates that have taken place in recent years.

Insightful history well read

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