Competition, Coercion, and African American Economic Progress in the Work of Robert Higgs

Postbellum African American economic progress was remarkable. The American economic historian Robert Higgs explained that for freedmen and their descendants caught between the forces of competition and coercion in the postbellum era, competitive forces worked largely to their benefit while coercive forces worked largely to their detriment. These aggregate gains did not come because they were intentionally pursued or consciously designed. They emerged as the unintended consequence of competitive market forces