Current Events > dat feel when you realize american capitalism got its start off decades of free

(+) Yeah! (+)

labor followed by decades of indentured servitude followed by decades of wealth funneling to a small group of people. capitalism is working and has always worked exactly how it was designed in the beginning.

lets not forget the legality of said small group to be able to control our policy makers with $
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slavery in the south isn't really the relevant analogue for capitalism in the US. the vast majority of wealth in the US was concentrated in the industrialized north, which was not built upon either slave labor or indentured servitude, but rather a labor/capital relationship that was tilted strongly in favor of capital simply because the alternative option for labor was subsistence farming.

always remember this: the reason capital tends to get more out of its negotiation for wealth than labor does is because it has options.
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Darkman124 posted...

the vast majority of wealth in the US was concentrated in the industrialized north, which was not built upon either slave labor or indentured servitude,

The major industries were heavily reliant on cheap southern cotton, though.
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Hey it wasn't free, they had to buy those people
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yeah its a shame that had to happen

but as we all sit here in our air conditioned houses posting on our computers

thank the lordy dordy for capitalism :)

Antifar posted...

The major industries were heavily reliant on cheap southern cotton, though.

Were they? The US economy included textiles, but was also heavily invested in steel and railroading. There was much more competition from overseas in textiles (as our mercantilist competitors had a lot of silk/cotton flowing in from their colonies) than there was in steel, since the US' natural iron and coal deposits were unique among industrial powers.

Searching for a breakdown of segments of the economy during the 1800s is difficult, but I'd happily grant you the point on this if you have the data available somewhere. Interested and not taking a hard opposition stance since there's a valid point to be made regardless of the degree to which our economy was diversified.

Might have been that we started with textiles as most others did, and expanded to steel after the initial base was established and created a demand for steel in and of itself. I honestly don't know.
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you missed the part where they brought over the Japanese
and when the japanese wanted equal rights they brought over Chinese
and when the chinese wanted equal rights they brought over Filipinos
and when the filipinos wanted equal rights they brought over Koreans
etc

America's history is based off the manual labor of non-whites being exploited
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YOUHAVENOHOPE posted...

you missed the part where they brought over the Japanese
and when the japanese wanted equal rights they brought over Chinese
and when the chinese wanted equal rights they brought over Filipinos
and when the filipinos wanted equal rights they brought over Koreans
etc

America's history is based off the manual labor of non-whites being exploited

Referring to the railroading industry, right?

As I recall from my history texts, those weren't indentured servants, but rather exploited workers, who again were left with the choice of deeply underpaid industrial labor or subsistence farming.

No argument that we were exploiting non-whites, but in this case it was more a matter of the non-whites being the ones lacking options, and capital settling on them over whites since they were cheaper.

It's racist, but the core driver was the struggle between labor and capital, and as labor in the US domestic population gained more options, capital looked elsewhere for new, cheaper labor.

I do not have any argument with the core point: that capitalism has always relied upon capital extorting a very one-sided deal from labor. Just the nature of how that deal came to be and why labor had so little choice in the matter. It wasn't a gun held to their head so much as starvation held to their gut.

Perhaps that's no better. I am no moral authority.
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Darkman124 posted...

Referring to the railroading industry, right?

No
Hawaiian plantations (and mainland ones, as i understand)

but that also happened
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