The US South's Elites Have Kept the Region Poor and Underdeveloped / Keri Leigh Merritt

A lot of libertarian ideology comes from the antebellum South. If you go back and read those planters journals, it's very similar. They're not investing anything at all. There's very little in the way of taxation and no investment in the antebellum period. In these Deep South states where cotton is king, there is no system of public education, even for white people until Black people come in and create it and Reconstruction in these states. And so there's persistent underdevelopment even to this day. Where I grew up in Mississippi and in Georgia, these are the states that our governors still don't even let in federal dollars to help people with Medicare or with basic needs for of health for their children. These are basic rights that everyone in the richest country in America should be getting and there are places in the country that aren't getting them. This is because of this legacy of slavery and legacy of power consolidation.