MINIMUM-WAGE WORKERS ARE CHEAPER THAN SLAVES

[JEFF9K]

A minimum-wage worker, at today's rates, costs an employer about $320.00 for a 40-hour week.

The cost of a slave, if slavery were legal in the U.S. as it is in some parts of the world, would be much higher - over $500.00!

Taking into account the initial purchase price, along with housing, food, health care, clothing, miscellaneous expenses, and around-the-clock guards, a slave could easily cost twice as much as a minimum-wage worker at today's rate.

Does a country lose its anti-slavery cred when it allows companies to spend less on a worker than it would have to spend for a slave?

[Xyzse]

1. I guess... It is more like serfdom though.

Especially with Estate Taxes being gone, it merely propagates the idea of the idle rich.
Heck, they make money out of being idle rich by broadcasting the carp they do... This is why I am so against the Kardashians.

[malthaussen]

2. No, I'd say not.

A standard pro-slavery argument before and after the US Civil War was that slaves in the South were treated better than industrial workers in the North, and the facts would seem to bear that out. (Of course, all sorts of examples and counter-examples may be cherry-picked to prove one point or the other) Those at the bottom of the capitalist pyramid have always gotten the rawest of deals.

When you think about it, it makes sense. A slave is an investment. Given a bare minimum of survivable treatment, one should provide useful labor for years. Unskilled industrial workers are interchangeable pieces. If they starve to death, become disabled, incapacitate themselves through use of alcohol or drugs, or otherwise render themselves superfluous, they may be discarded and their place taken by some other poor starving SOB. These days, it is the unskilled service workers who have the sticky end of the stick, since we are no longer the industrial nation we once were.

-- Mal

[JEFF9K]

6. "the sticky end of the stick"

Good line!

[Sunlei]

3. It is similar because both could NOT be worked to death. The 80+ years of chain-gang slaves

were worked to death.

Right after the civil war & ~80 years and more-Corps/Farms- rented 'freed slaves' from prisons.

The southern states made up crazy laws so they could made arrest and toss in prisons any 'free persons' they could get their hands on. It is still legal to have prisoners be slaves. "except as punishment for a crime" <--13th amendment

[Faryn Balyncd]

4. The result of privatizing the fruits of labor while socializing many costs of living...

....the costs of healthcare, education, food stamps, housing assistance, etc being born by relatives and society at large.

[valerief]

5. How much do privatized prisoners cost? They're modern day slaves. That's why there are

so many prisons.

[bobclark86]

7. My county lockup pays more than $30k a year for a prisoner...

So yeah, you definitely got a point there.