Not really. Slavery wasn't exactly the gold mine people today thought it was for the plantations. In fact it was nearly done in until the cotton gin was invented then it had a resurgence. Small wonder why the inventor doesn't get much flack today.

The cotton gin was invented in the late 1700s. Slavery I think was a social issue for the Midwest/great lakes and rural New England and economic for those in the south and urban New England.

In 1860 there were 9 million people living in the states that formed the Confederacy. Of those 9 million almost 1 million were slaves or 10% of the population or more. With an agriculture based economy that utilized slave labor the argument that slavery was not an economic issue to the south holds little water. The main asset the south had most like was their human owned assets as it was an asset that could be bought and sold and the labor created the revenue from their land. Losing slaves as assets was a major cause of concern for the south and after 4 years of war and losing that war they were right in believing so.

Bryce

Would be interesting to see property tax or insurance records to determine what was the assessed value of those in slavery. Also would be curious what was the ROI for the average size slave holding property.

Forty percent of all the slaves sold in the USA were sold in Charleston, SC. I don't know about taxes or property insurance etc. but the may well have many records of sale prices of the human assets which could be used to formulate a total value of all the slaves. It probably is the best place due to the volume of sales there. Also many were purchased long before the USA was created so that may impact records as well.

Bryce

When economic needs are met, it's no longer the most important issue. It started with the industrial revolution. Machines made it possible for one person to do the production of 10 people. People moved away from hard labor to earn their money to just plain old labor. With production way up, everyone became wealthy. Wealthy people don't worry about money.

When collectivism became came more atractive economically to those who lacked the necessary effort to succeed individually

60 ' s maybe

FDR and the Depression era. The social programs that were passed, works programs, social security, CCC, FHA, CWA, FSA, PWA, TVA, etc. (sorry I got interrupted.) No one should suffer like the Depression brought out. (mentality) These programs take us to where we are today. I understand the slavery point and agree but to me The Depression changed it all. FDR Democrats elected Dems until Nixon in 1968.

1860's?

I was reading something the other day from the depression era that people were that they were glad they were American poor rather than old world poor.

I'm still really stuck on suffrage, prohibition and the late golden age. Lots of commies and anarchist, 2 presidents assassinated and more bombings than I can count.

Mid to late 1960's. The Vietnam war, drugs, introspection (while on drugs), Eastern mysticism, etc, etc..
OP asked when it started. I don't know why it started but the things I mentioned above may have had something to do with it.