Thursday, October 2, 2008

Einhorn on Slavery

Robin Einhorn, Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, has posted Slavery, an essay in Enterprise & Society, 9 (September 2008): 491-506, which (for a fee) is available as a download. Here is the abstract:
The history of slavery cannot be separated from the history of business in the United States, especially in the context of the relationship between public power and individual property rights. This essay suggests that the American devotion to sacred property rights stems more from the vulnerability of slaveholding elites than to a political heritage of protection for the common man.