RE: On Pseudoscience, Heresy, and Climate Change
November 20, 2011 at 11:49 am
(This post was last modified: November 20, 2011 at 11:56 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Well, as Min has said, slavery ended in the US because the south lost the war. However, the introduction of fossil fuel based technology (read: farm machinery) and the death of sugar would have had a profound effect on any sort of slavery that existed then or could have continued. Some would argue that immigrant laborers are, at the very best, indentured servants..and that slavery has continued along very predictable lines. Agriculture used to be extremely labor intensive. It is no such thing today. The only niche that would have remained is in tasks that require considerable manual dexterity and experience (picking ripe fruits for example) for which there is still no suitable piece of machinery. This is exactly the niche that migrant field workers fill. Couple dollars a day (that's all the job is worth, honestly), their children can work; and there are no healthcare, housing, or labor laws that effectively protect them from malfeasance. Volunteer for one day at a community farm (make sure they know you want to work and aren't just a tourist). Grab yourself a beer at the end of the day and ponder over the fact that the beer you're drinking represents the total proceeds from 14 hours worth of labor in that same field, to a migrant worker.
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