By Michael Brem
Bonner
In Confederate Political Economy, Michael Bonner suggests
that the Confederate nation was an expedient corporatist state -- a society
that required all sectors of the economy to work for the national interest, as
defined by a partnership of industrial leaders and a dominant government. As
Bonner shows, the characteristics of the Confederate States' political economy
included modern organizational methods that mirrored the economic landscape of
other late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century corporatist
governments.
Southern leaders, Bonner argues, were slave-owning
agricultural capitalists who sought a counterrevolution against northern
liberal capitalism. During secession and as the war progressed, they built and
reinforced Confederate nationalism through specific centralized government
policies. Bolstered by the Confederate constitution, these policies evolved
into a political culture that allowed for immense executive powers, facilitated
an anti-party ideology, and subordinated individual rights. In addition, the
South's lack of industrial capacity forced the Confederacy to pursue a curious
manufacturing policy that used both private companies and national ownership to
produce munitions. This symbiotic relationship was just one component of the
Confederacy's expedient corporatist state: other wartime policies like
conscription, the domestic passport system, and management of southern
railroads also exhibited unmistakable corporatist characteristics. Bonner's
probing research and new comparative analysis expand our understanding of the
complex organization and relationships in Confederate political and economic
culture during the Civil War.
ISBN 978-0807162125, LSU Press, © 2016, Hardcover, 272
pages, Tables, End Notes, Cited Works &Index. $48.00. To
purchase this book click HERE.
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