Episode 535 • • 1:21:18 - 1:25:22
535: Swivel-Chair Speed
Karl Marx as Columnist, Civil War Slaveholder Votes
Karl Marx's history as a newspaper columnist and economist is explored, specifically his writings on the American Civil War. Marx observed that the Southern secession was driven by a small elite of 330,000 slaveholders who effectively controlled the political process through the "three-fifths" slave vote. It is argued that the majority of the non-slaveholding Southern population did not actually want to secede from the Union.