While the rest of the world perfects wind and solar, the United States is fighting a bloody, expensive war for oil.
Same or different?
Nowadays, you just give an unemployed person the ability to be a “free entrepreneur” while using an app and boom, labor cheaper than slaves - no need to worry about silly things like keeping them (barely) fed and clothed when you can convince them it’s their own damn fault for not working hard enough to feed themselves! Sure, you no longer “own” slaves and you can’t actually whip them for silly things like wanting to be treated like a human, but hey, it’s cheap!
Sarcasm aside, it does make me wonder if slaves in the 16th-19th centuries were anything like today’s delivery workforce, where some have a modicum of knowledge about the shit situation they’re in and want better wages and living/working conditions, while others in the same shit situation insist it’s just because “you’re not working hard enough bro!”
Monoculture is an antiquated form of agriculture.
Slavery is a barbarously cruel crime against humanity.
Perhaps people will say similar things about industrial meat production and billionaires in a few hundred years.
Before the war it was becoming popular to rent or sell slaves to corporations. They built the railroads and mined coal to their deaths. Slavery wasn’t going to die on its own.
Slavery is literally “any job that can be done can be forced to be done”
Quality doesn’t matter, only ends justifying means
Sure it was, what makes you think otherwise? Slaves are inefficient. Actual workers generate more money for their boss. There is a reason slavery is so small today compared to 200 years ago despite the much higher wages.
You’re goddamn right your boss would pay you less, if they could get away with it. Free labor is highly efficient for the capital class. There are more slaves today than there were 200 years ago. Literally everything you said is false.
If you think THAT’S stupid, wait until you see what they start THIS one over.
It may be costly. It may be ineffective. And maybe I built my plantation in the least fertile place possible. And maybe I don’t know shit about farming. And maybe, possible, having slaves is a constant loss to me and my civilization.
But damnit if I can’t use slavery to justify my racism, how will I feel like a big important man?!
Before the war there were more Millionaires in Natchez Ms than in the entire state of New York. WTF are you on about?
“One of the most destructive wars in human history”
“One of” is doing some heavy lifting there.
Among the local wars between northern american people at the time, it was one of the most destructive!
I mean, it’s currently at number 50 on Wikipedia’s list of wars by death toll (out of 130 listed conflicts). I feel like that might qualify as one of the most destructive, but it’s obviously a subjective description.
Also, at the time, it would have been quite a bit higher on the list.
It really doesn’t. Destructive is a much broader term than casualties, especially military.
It definitely was one of the wars!
And then calling it the “war of northern aggression”
Welcome to industrialization
Industrialization in the form of the cotton gin was one of the main reasons slavery was so profitable in the South. What are you talking about?
Slavery was even dying before the cotton gin was invented. It’s inventor even thought it would end slavery; but ironically for him, it did the opposite.
Turns out if you can use less slaves to make the same amount of cotton, demand goes up and thus supply must too.
I’m talking about basing an economy off of one export and then starting a war with the dudes who have all the boats and manufacturing!
A southerner would think they would lose the export anyway due to abolition. So gambling on the union not being that keen on fighting may be sensible.
It was about states rights /s.
States rights to…(fill in the blank here) 😉
Just for reference the /s is an internet wide symbol for sarcasm aka I’m joking. Near its peak (1860) about 1.4% of Americans owned slaves. In the states where slavery was legal, approximately 25% of all white households owned at least one enslaved person, and in the Deep South, this figure approached 50%. So yeah states rights to own slaves.
You’re good lol I was just riffing. I appreciate the sincere explanation though /gen /pos 😄
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