Liberal Forum

Vegas » 14 Feb 2023, 2:47 pm » wrote: ↑

14 Feb 2023, 2:47 pm

It set the stage.
 

No, slavery did not set the stage for future growth.  Slaverey set the stage for the complete destruction of not only the South, but much of the North as well.  The North lost many men to the war, and much of the nation's wealth was devoted toward the North winning that war and destroying the South.

Slavery was still in the conscious of the South...and in the North to some degree.

Whether it was or wasn't, has nothing to do with the real, tangible losses of wealth, property, land and skilled men that the South, and to a lesser extent the North suffered. 

The idea of using blacks as cheap labor continued because of how well it worked before.

Blacks lacked any skill or education whatsoever.  So, all they were capable of doing were the lowest forms of unskilled jobs.  Still, they were paid for their work.  They were free.  They could live where they wanted to live and they were not tied to a master or owner in any way.  As such, whatever work they did they were paid for - this is not attributable to slavery. 

They could only build back up because they were able to hire blacks far below what whites were paid.

Plantations that used slaver labor never "built back up" - that's another fallacy.  What happened was mechanization and industrialization.  Machines replaced slave labor to a large degree, and whatever manual labor that needed to be used was paid.  They were not paid "below whites" for doing the same jobs, because most ****** couldn't do the same jobs as whites.  They simply lacked the skills.

The factories were filed with black laborers because of it. The South built an empire on slaves. That empire collapsed. But the idea of exploitation of blacks remained. This led to them being able to rebuild.

The factories were all in the north.  There were no factories in the South.  The South remained dirt poor and destitute for many decades after the war.  In fact, it wasn't until after WWII that the South started to make any gains economically. 

Many blacks left the south and moved north to work in the factories.  How do you think the North got so many Africans living there?  Whether the blacks who worked back then should have been paid more for their work - that's a different issue.  But, then we're talking about something other than slavery.  And, we certainly are no longer talking about how America got "rich" on the backs of slaves.