or could it be that a dollar is worth a lot more in other countries rather than ours. sure, its not making anybody over there incredibly rich, but its not like they view or use a dollar like we do.... it goes a lot further there.
Oski, people just have to adapt, we all used to be farmers 100 years ago. Times change. I in no way favor forcing companies to keep jobs here for the sake of keeping jobs. It does no one any good, if we keep all the jobs, there will be no one to buy the products because our products will not only be over priced, no one in poorer countries will be working anyway. Just like farming, its done now in developing countries, or by migrant workers. We managed to navigate that change, we can manage to navigate this one.
I know people have to adapt, I was hoping that people would tell me what that next step is. I'm not trying to be an alarmist here. I'm just thinking out loud. I mean, one of the new things I've been hearing is that now, even certain IT jobs are starting to show up in other countries like India. Is that an isolated incident or the start of a trend. With the world getting more connected, who knows what jobs will start getting shipped out. Why have a guy in downtown be your accountant when you can just as easily get an equally good accountant in another country who will work for less?
I'm gonna make this short and in the process bastardize the work of a lot of historians: While free labor is more efficient than chattel slave labor, this wasn't neccessarily the case later in the 19th century when free labor didn't really exist as we see it today or as free labor existed by the Civil War. The history of US chattel slavery is seen divided into two parts, colonial and antebellum. Colonial chattel slavery (1600s-later part of 1700s) was a boon for the colonies as it was the central component of the early staple economies. The colonies had one real resource--land. After a series of events, the colonial economy would come to rely on staple crops (tobacco, rice,etc.). Staples, in particular tobacco, required labor under harsh conditions--labor not willing to be done by indentured servants. Combine this with a tobacco boom (which increased labor demand beyond that which could be met by voluntary immigration or servitude), improved mortality rates in the colonies (which made a chattel slave a worthwhile investment because the slave woud live longer), the inherited attribute of chattel slavery (buy a male and female and you get to keep the offspring), and you get a situation where slave becomes a profitable enterprise, despite the costs of enforcement. During antebellum, 19th century, slavery--the time period to which your link refers, cotton would become the primary raw material for Northern and European manufacturing. The Southern slave economy was the "King" of cotton production. It wasn't until the capitalization of Northen industry was well underway and there was a sufficient growth of free labor (labor unable to subsist without a wage) that slavery really becomes too inefficient to manage. Slavery is not just a method of labor, but an social institution that shaped the lives of all Americans regardless of color. The institution arguably ingrained racism into American culture, helping act as a "solvent" to class tensions among whites. It harmed both blacks and whites. Slavery has influenced every major political discussion our country has held. Just checking the [url-"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lawhome.html"]congressional records[/url] one can see how centrally the "peculiar institution" slavery with its "species of property" has functioned in government operations from social policy to census reporting to apportionment to trade to taxation. Its been such a huge part of American culture and economy that I can't separate it and say it wasn't essential. Basically, every society needs exploitable labor. At the time of slavery's genesis, chattel slavery was it.
This really should be a different thread, but .... BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) is coming to the US economy in a big way. Just like we lost manufacturing jobs going south and overseas, and just like we are losing IT jobs (such as writing software) to workers in India, all sorts of business processes (read SERVICES) will be outsourced overseas in the near future. It is already spreading to the banking and financial services industries. Many Fortune 500 companies are or are considering outsourcing such things as HR and supply chain management. Last one here, turn out the lights.
