Comments on: Minimum Wage vs Slavery

By: drew

drew — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:21:41 +0000

This has more than a ring of truth to it. In reality, it cost more to upkeep a slave than it does a modern wage earner. One specific example is James Madison, who spent far more to house, clothe, feed, etc. his slaves than modern corporation spend on their wage workers. It is hard to make a comparison with modern society, but I’m sure if there were TVs and other entertainment in the 18th and 19th century, slave owners would have given them to their slaves to distract them from the hell they were living in. We really haven’t come very far since then.

Also, there were several arguments made in the South in favor of slavery, citing the fact that the industrial North treated their workers like total garbage due to the fact that they could just go out and find another. Slaves, on the other hand, were the owner’s property, which gave them incentive to actually take care of them. It’s a twisted argument, but at the time, slaves were often better taken care of than wage earners.

By: richard souza

richard souza — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:59:39 +0000

I had a group of proffesors that sounded so depressing and bleak.Finally one day I asked why do you keep painting such a sad picture of things?The answer was simple"Because we want you to go out and change the way things are"
In economics we were taught that an I deal wage povided food shelter and an allowance to perpetute the race.
We were also taught that that the slaves were set free because the industrialization of america was being finaced by the North as a relative new venture.
The south already entrenched with slaves and plantations were not happy just producing cotton they were pplanning to takeover the textile industrys and already had the land,labor,and capital.
Since Northern investors,could not quickly build factorys,buy slaves and build housing it became neccasry to liberate the southerners from their work force and plantations.
The basic principle of slave Vs. employee is a slave needs food shelter clothing medical tools housing and the perpetution of his race.Evidently a free worker in America needs a smaller portion of these things.

By: societysfault

societysfault — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:02:36 +0000

Nice post, now for the record, sensible people such as myself can read this and understand perfectly well how true so much of this is. We understand it because we live it.

Then there are the "others" that see the word slavery, and have to go balls to the walls literal with the analogy. These are what i call "stupid people".

But yes, the truth is, paying people these horrible wages, for all these years, is only good for one group of people. the rich.

the way I see it, if you cant afford to pay your workers a good wage, you should just do that job your self.

I couldnt tell you how many cheap ass employers ive worked for, that have never worked a day in their lives.

I wish Americans would grow some backbone and stand up and do something about it.

By: Line

Line — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:51:43 +0000

Mac, theoretically this may be “the land of opportunity” but when “some” companies think they cannot go under and expect the government to keep them going, we are closer to communism than you think. besides who can afford to live in a house on minimum wage? Freedom to live under a bridge is better than living in a house that isn’t yours?

By: Mac

Mac — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:31:14 +0000

they never paid you for being a slave. Besides, this is the land of opportunity, not the land of “hey, let’s be communists and have everyone receive the same amount of money”. And I am pretty sure any slave would prefer FREEDOM than living in house that isn’t their own where they are told what to do, and HAVE to do it.