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Can we actually do this, though? How extricable is "slavery" from "depends on cash-crop latifundia" in a description of the 19th century American political economy? Every study and monograph I've seen answers this with "not very," though there have been repeated efforts to look at the few examples of "industrial slavery" that existed to try and tease out counterfactuals (e.g. Tredegar works in Richmond, a few mills in places like Atlanta, and a few of the border states like Maryland and Delaware).
Cash-crop latifundia always and everywhere wind up placing ordinary workers in fairly spectacular poverty, regardless of whether they're technically "free" or not. Rubber plantations in the Congo, modern cinnamon harvesting in Madagascar, and the various cash-crop economies of the Atlantic world all display similar labor relations.
Yes. The deep south cash crop states were not the only slave states. You pointed out border states yourself, many of which are quite temperate in climate. There was no reason for them to be so undeveloped compared to new england, and even some of the relatively underpopulated great lakes states. Virginia is actually an ideal place for industrialization--lots of cheap coal, lots of riverways that can transport coal and then power industry in cities, and lots of amazing places for huge ports. Yet, Virginia never really industrialized.
Studies have actually been done, although the veracity will always be fuzzy with 150+ year old data, they never suggest the effects are "not very" large.
A lot of borders are arbitrary, but the outcomes are not. The policy of a state and culture of a region are maybe the most important single factor for economic development. Slave states vs non slave are maybe the best example outside of east and west germany.
Maryland and Delaware are very small. Delaware has always been, more or less, a hinterland of Philly. Maryland, on the other hand wasn't that undeveloped - Baltimore was one of the most important seaports in the U.S., and until the opening of the Erie Canal was the major hub for the Ohio Valley via the National Road. The Erie Canal killed the road traffic, and the City diversified into railroads and cast-iron work. It slowly declined in importance relative to NYC and Philly - but not nearly as much or as fast as New Orleans did - and it remained a major locus of immigration and innovation. None of that had much to do with slavery, iirc.
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Aren't the Dutch engaged in effectively that with their flower industry ? Are the workers there living in such poverty ?
I confess ignorance about that sector specifically, but my general understanding was that the Dutch agriculture sector generally was the most mechanized and technology-intensive on the planet, and so wasn't really what I was thinking of. My fault - I should have been more specific that I was referring to labor-intensive industries. Even today, those tend towards fairly horrifying conditions (e.g. the Indian/Sri Lankan tea industry, where workers are still getting paid significantly in food rations, medical care, school access, etc.)
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