Independence, as slave-holding republic, seemed to be the only route to safety. Even this step, Genovese implies, would have disappointed the planter elite. The problems of their society were structural. Political intervention might have slowed the pace of decline and decay, but only for a time. Since the publication of the book, critics of Genovese's argument have often appeared.
Criticism tends to fall into two main categories.
Economic historians, using econometrics and theory, have worked on the structure of slavery as an economic system. Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, in Time on the Cross , argue that slavery was an adaptable system, with high enough levels of labor productivity and adequate profit rates, to preserve the institution, even within the structure of the Union. From an economic viewpoint there was no inevitability to slavery's collapse. Other historians have criticized Genovese's argument from the perspective of social history. In reality, the great planters tended to be a small, isolated group, particularly concentrated in the Southeast, who were unrepresentative of the mass of slaveowners.