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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper summarizes the themes of James Oakes’s book “Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South.” Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KV32_HVjoakes.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
says, worked together to create the antebellum South. His main thesis, which he states quite clearly, is that because slavery "is always defined as the denial of freedom, the way
any given society defines freedom is inescapably tied to the way it defines slavery" (Oakes, 1990, p. xiii). He further elaborates on the connections he hopes to draw between slavery
and liberal capitalism, saying that Southerners "took their definition of freedom from the liberal capitalist world which produced them and of which they remained a part," which could only mean
that the way the South defined slavery was as the "denial of the assumptions of liberal capitalism" (Oakes, 1990, p. xiii). This paper examines how well (or poorly) Oakes proves
his thesis; the themes of the book; others opinions of it; and whether or not it should be recommended to others. Discussion If slavery is a denial of the assumptions
of liberal capitalism, as Oakes suggests, then a logical starting point is to find out what liberal capitalism is. Words and their meanings change over the years, and a liberal
today is not the liberal of the 1800s. Zimmerman defines liberal capitalism as the philosophy that "government must be proactively involved to keep the playing field level" (Zimmerman). This idea
is still alive today, proposed by progressives who feel that everyone should get a shot at a piece of the pie; and largely opposed by conservatives, whose focus tends to
be on the bottom line. That is a gross exaggeration, but it serves to point out the essential quandary that Oakes explores: how could slavery, the most repressive and demeaning
system of labor in the history of man, exist within a liberal society? He attempts to answer that question by addressing his other main theme, which is, how does the
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