cutting your own throat?

The idea that the South commemorates/venerates the Civil War is not new but the analysis here — that the decision to focus on manual agriculture, rather than do anything that might add value or elevate the status of slaves or freedmen — was right to the point. It’s understood that the North prevailed due to its industrial base, a key asset to the warfare of the time, but I hadn’t considered that there were decisions made beyond the simplest market analysis.

[From Freakonomics » Why Does the South Still Commemorate the Civil War, But Not the North? Bring Your Questions for Historian Peter Coclanis]