Changing history

[CapnAwesome]

The US obviously didn't need slavery. In fact it only became an economic superpower when it was abolished. I think there are several good arguments that slavery actually retarded development, both in the US and globally. When you have access to cheap slave labor you have no incentive to create labor saving systems of devices and I think it is not a coincidence that those were invented around the time of the abolition of slavery. In fact Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, made this very same argument. Also lots of countries had just as much invested in slavery. Look at how many slaves were in the British or French empires and they let them go without a war. This is just moral excuse making.

No the US and no other country needed slavery, ever.

I think their needs to be a distinction made between chattle slavery (what most of you think about when the word is used) and the general use of that term.
Chattle slaves are beaten and owned. A slave (especially true in the modern sense of the word in one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence) even in the modern sense can be owned, as they go indebt to the company and must continue to work for the company till the debt is paid.

That said if America didn't need slaves in some sense of the word right now, then why do agricultural job not have to comply with any of our current labor law governing minimum wage, child labor, workers comp nor meet any safty guidelines? All we've done is change the name from slave to migrant worker and all of the sudden people are willing to turn so blindly to this practice most of us have no idea/nor care that whole families can work from 4 in the morning till 8 at night 6 or 7 days a week for less than 1/2 the federal minimum wage. For instance a working family averages 17,500.00 per year. which comes out to 336.53 lets say a 5 day work week, which averages 8.41 per hour. Now divide that by 2 people that's 4.20 a person. IF they can find an hourly job. Most work is done by the field, which can have one break even with that 8.41 or more often times than not means less money per hour. (otherwise why pay by the field if paying by the hour was cheaper.) It all depends on physical condition, what was being picked, the weather and the support equipment condition.
I've worked in a field before and know first hand, and now my business is still tied (in part) to produce/bringing food to market, and nothing has changed.

http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm-wo...low-wages/

We need cheap/free labor or our way of life even today does not work. All soceities are based on a big pyrmid scheme even the ones that pretend they aren't.

I agree with everything you said there, except that there is still an enormous difference between that and slavery.