American Socrates

How is the Alt-Right the Legacy of American Slavery? (Part 1)

Charles M. Rupert Season 1 Episode 18

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In this episode, we dive into the writings of George Fitzhugh, a 19th-century American Lawyer and social critic who launched one of the earliest full-throated critiques of capitalism—not from the left, but from the slave plantations of the South. Fitzhugh believed that freedom was a myth, and that most people were better off being ruled. Slavery, in his eyes, was not a shameful past—it was a blueprint for a stable society. We examine how his arguments worked, why they were persuasive to some, and what they reveal about the deep entanglement between race, hierarchy, and current right-wing thought in American history.

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