MAIL FROM RUSSIA - To The Bob Charles Show

The Bob Charles Show gets mail from all over the Globe but this one was Interesting - I received this from Moscow concerning their feeling about America !

American Capitalism always deands slave labor. < tooradical2 > 08/03 03:41:25

When America was founded, slave labor produced a substantial part of the nation's GDP. Non-slave labor based businesses was MUCH less profitable than operating a slave-based cotton, sugar or tobacco plantation.

"In the pre-Civil War United States, a stronger case can be made that slavery played a critical role in economic development. One crop, slave-grown cotton provided over half of all U.S. export earnings. By 1840, the South grew 60 percent of the world's cotton and provided some 70 percent of the cotton consumed by the British textile industry. Thus slavery paid for a substantial share of the capital, iron, and manufactured good that laid the basis for American economic growth."


http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/was-slavery-engine-american-economic-growth

Because traditional slavery became illegal, the drive to maximize profit had to restructure the business/social environment in ways that provided slave-like profits by other means. It is no coincidence that wide spread Capitalism arose only AFTER slavery was abolished.

Slave labor was not without costs to the employer. Slaves had to be bought on a competitive market, often at a substantial price. Slaves had to be fed, housed and supervised, and provided with enough medical care to maintain their utility. Obviously a male slave who was disabled or a female slave who was unable to produce off spring was of substantially lesser value to their owner. Slaves suffered in any business downturn resulting from macro-economic pressures or simple mismanagement by the slave owner.