V. O. Key (1908–1963)

The distinguished economist attempted to offer a definitive answer, based on factual surveys and data rather than on ideology and speculation, to the mystery of how rich "plantation" oligarchs have repeatedly gotten poor white farmers to vote against their own interests in local elections: The oligarchs limit public education, and control the media which lies to the voters and keeps them angry and afraid.

The Professor shows how important it was, and is, for the regional powers to keep their franchise in ignorance and in fear. The "dixiefication" of the entire country, 60 years later, is all the more troubling, as northern monopolists adopted the same techniques--taking over the media, destroying the schools, and filling public offices with empty suits, creating self-fulfilling prophesies of inept public institutions.

Reading this important work, and noting the depth, accuracy and fairness of the surveys upon which the conclusions are based, I am reminded of how fortunate America is that in spite of having clung to an invidious form of Enslavement of fellow human beings for 300 years, the Slaves and their descendants have been remarkably, astonishingly, forgiving and patient. The descendants of the Slaves are still being used as the "straw man/ bogey man" held up to keep the poor whites living in fear of some retribution, and as the scapegoat for blaming Negroes for all the problems faced by the poor whites. The professor documents the repeated behavior of the rich plantation owners taking everything for themselves, and then blaming Negroes, and Yankees and foreigners, for the poverty and lack of infrastructure in the South.

This work couples nicely with the more recent "political economics" text -- influenced by V.O. Key's scientific and mathematical methodology -- which documents the fact that at the time of the Civil War, the South was one of the wealthiest regions of the world. The oligarchs had a global lock on raw cotton production and could easily have won the Civil War by paying for an army three times bigger than anything the North could have produced, except for one thing: the Southern oligarchs just could not bear to tax themselves so as to pay for such an army.

Reference: updating -

qv. Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America." https://www.amazon.com/How-South-Won-Civil-War/dp/0190900903/

qv .Robert William Fogel, "Without consent or contract : the rise and fall of American slavery"

Sam Metz describes "very readable, fact-driven, and courageous enough to arrive at solid conclusions."… (more)

3622. Southern Politics in State and Nation A New Edition, by V. O. Key, Jr., with assistance of Alexander Heard (read 30 Aug 2002) This book is a classic on its subject, but it was published in 1949 and the "new edition" is a mere reprint. Nevertheless it talks very knowledgeably about a subject which has been of interest to me all my life. I well remember listening (in Iowa) to Southern politicians' speeches on the radio in my youth, and in fact much I read was confirmatory of what my impression of the political situation in the South was in those old bad days. His account of the rise and use of the poll tax was somewhat new information for me, and one wished that the author had lived to see how the Voting Rights Act of 1965 solved some of the worst features of what was the situation in the 1940s and before. When people can vote politicians won't insult them--like I can remember so well people like Bilbo and Eastland doing in the days when only whites voted in Mississippi. Not a bad book for anyone interested in southern political history, though it is history only incidentally, having been written for I suppose one would say political scientists.… (more)