Pellagra, Sharecropping, and the Hidden Costs of Extractive

I’d like to tell you a true story about Pellagra.

If you haven’t heard of it, it isn’t the catchy name for an ED pill, but instead a terrible disease of malnutrition. Specifically, the lack of Vitamin B3 (niacin) in the diet. The symptoms start with scaly skin, but progress to diarrhea, dementia, and ultimately, death. That sequence makes pellagra heartbreaking – the people you know and love don’t just get sick… they unravel as their minds slipped before their body failed.

Pellagra has popped up a few times in history, and as with most malnutritive diseases, it is mostly associated with poverty. Hands down, the worst and most persistent outbreak was in the American South, where it lasted for generations – from 1906 until 1945.

Sharecropping and the Economics of Extraction