George Fitzhugh was born into a Virginia slaveholding family in financial decline. He was an ardent defender of slavery, believing Africans were racially inferior and that it "elevated" Africans to be around whites.

Sociology for the South, or The Failure of a Free Society argues that the free trade, free labor, capitalist system is worse for laborers than the paternalistic system of slavery, in which (in theory) slaves are treated well. As part of his larger argument in favor of pre-Marxist socialism, Fitzhugh attempts to discuss the role of religion in a slave society and to provide Biblical justification for slavery.

While there's no question that Fitzhugh's views were racist, he's gotten fresh attention from scholars interested in comparing his critique of capitalism with Marxism and related theories.