Compare the shanty town in LA today to the agricultural worker under indentured servitude. Both sort of miserable lives, Mexicans improved the system somewhat but it still exists today.
Before the civil war, indentured servitude was a legal, with no reference to race. But the practice was suddenly being confined to agricultural plantations in the south. The North wanted better labor laws, the South wanted race embedded in labor contracts.
The South was wrong to legalize it, and we paid the civil war price. But the root of the issue remained. It happened before and after, to a measurable extent. That measurable cost of the civil war over whelms any natural improvement in racist labor practices that resulted. My high school teacher suggested that a period of technology and benign neglect soon would have regulated it away.
No comments:
Post a Comment