Jacob N. Cardozo: Economic Thought in the Antebellum South (review)

72CIVIL WAR HISTORY Jacob N. Cardozo: Economic Thought in the Antebellum South. By Melvin M. Leünan. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966. Pp. 252. $7.50.) Resurrecting writers from die past and attributing to diem foresight m the congency of their arguments and originality of thought is an old game in die literature of die history of economic diought. The present study is no exception: Cardozo's was at best an average mind as diese tilings are judged in die level of contribution to economic dieory. He had neidier die analytical prowess of a Ricardo or die insightful brilliance of a Malthus. Nowhere in the body of received economic doctrine is there to be found a dieorem or original contribution to economic dieory attributable to or associated widi die name of Cardozo. He may have been analytically superior to Carey Sr., as die audior of tiiis study suggests, but diis only makes Cardozo the best of a pretty poor collection of economic dieorists in early American economic diought. Cardozo cannot, moreover, be set in the same class of late nineteentii century American economic theorists such as J. B. Clark, Davenport, Patten, or even Veblen. In short, it does botii Cardozo and die intellectual credibility of work in die history of economic ideas a disservice to make an appraisal of die man at diis level. Professor Leiman has produced an interesting book, but its interest is not in the attempt to squeeze originality out of Cardozo's writings for their contribution to contemporary economic theory, but rather in examining the insights and observations of Cardozo on the structure and pace of southern economic growth in the early and middle decades of the nineteentii century. At dus level, what Cardozo had to say and die methodology of his reasoning are worth paying more attention to for he had better dian average powers of observation and analysis compared to other contemporary writers on southern economic development. Even at dus level, however, die integrity of Cardozo's analytical powers is strongly delimited by his ideological views with respect to slavery and his general acceptance of soudiern values and traditions. His general notion of shifting resources from southern agriculture to manufacturing in order to produce a diversified southern economy is an argument few could disagree with. Yet to make the argument and to hope for its realization is another matter. Cardozo, and Professor Leiman, fail to take into account the entire bundle of resources that went into diversifying the economies of the Northeast and West. Investment in human skills, healdi inputs, entrepreneurship, and banking facilities were essential then and would have been essential to the transformation of the antebellum southern economy. Similarly, both Cardozo and Professor Leiman, do not give the proper weight to the way the price system operates: resources would not flow out of agriculture into otiier uses until the relative rates of return on capital invested changed. The rates of return in the antebellum cotton South were changing, not between sectors but within sectors and it was perfectly rational for southern agricultural resources to move (aided greatly one might add by foreign capital) into the newer agricultural regions of the Southwest. Changes in the rates of BOOK REVIEWS73 return were intrasectoral radier dian intersectoral. Finally, whedier or not it was die social system associated widi plantation slavery on the economic dynamics inherent in the economy there is no a priori basis for rejecting the proposition diat slavery and a viable high rate of growtii for die soudiern economy were incompatible premises. There is much of interest in Professor Leiman's study and it is appropriate that it be issued at Ulis time. Interest in the inner structure of southern economic development is at a high point and Cardozo's views and writings are worth reinvestigating even if only to reject diem. Ralph Andreano University of Wisconsin The Grain Trade in the Old Northwest. By John G. Clark (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966. Pp. xi, 324. $7.50.) This prize-winning volume in die Agricultural History Society's book award competition for 1965 traces the development of die grain trade m Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin—the nation's granary...