Serpo
17th October 2011, 03:18 AM
A Day’s Work for a Slaves Wage. Capitalism: Now Cheaper than Slavery (http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=363:a-days-work-for-a-slaves-wage-capitalism-now-cheaper-than-slavery&catid=31:franklins-world&Itemid=604)
http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/images/stories/franklin.jpg
Workers’ living quarters on a coffee plantation.
Our farmers are entering the eye-opening world of employer-employee relationships. The economics are fascinating from a social justice standpoint. After two recent federal wage increases that have nearly doubled minimum wage in Guatemala, it is still cheaper to hire a Guatemalan in 2010 than it was to own a slave in the US in 1865.
Capitalism works. In fact, it works better than our most recent economic alternative, slavery. Slavery had some major downsides. For example, the plantation owner had to pay for the food the slave ate, had to put a roof over their head, give away a bed and blanket of sorts, even provide medicine to a slave when they were sick lest they lose a valuable commodity. With communal living of slaves, socialized medicine, free food, subsidized rent—those plantation owners were leftist bleeding hearts. They were lucky to turn a profit at all.
Now, good old-fashioned capitalism, with just a dash of red-blooded imperialism has proven to be a much better alternative to socialized slavery. The free market worker is cheaper to employ than a slave. Gone are the days of subsidizing a slave’s wage with food, medicine, and a place to stay. A worker must make it on a slave’s wage, or not at all.
Let me give you a quick example of why slavery was more expensive than free market labor. Let’s say Mom and Dad are slaves. They work in the fields all day for food for themselves and their two little babies, too young to work. That food today would be the equivalent of the canasta basica, or the amount of food it takes to feed a family of 4 for a day. Today in Guatemala, that’s Q65. Renting out even the meanest of shelters, mud floor, tin roof, cornstalk walls, will run you at least Q17 a day. By moving the relationship from owner to owner-employer, the boss no longer pays for medicine, blankets, furnishings, etc. Without a vested ownership in one particular slave, they can be let go during illness, family trouble, what have you—and replace them with one of the many unowned-unemployed. Call it Q5 per day in savings of medicine and the like, straight to the bottom line. How do you calculate the cost avoidance of not having to go to the auctioneer to buy a new slave, and simply wait for them to come to you, for no cost at all? How do you calculate the savings by not having lost work days when your slaves were sick or died? I can’t put a number on it, but it was substantial. Or how about the fact that those pesky slaves kept trying to run away, which was a constant drain on resources. Now those slav employees are running to the boss for work. That’s a substantial improvement.
Then there is the out-of-pocket expense of buying the slave in the first place. In the 1860’s, a healthy young male in the US ran $1500, while a female was $1000. Even slave women hit that glass ceiling, but that’s a different article. Let’s call it $1250 on average, and adjust for inflation, and you’ve got $29611 in 2009 dollars or an even Q240,000 in 2009 quetzales. If you get 50 years of work, 7 days a week from that slave, your cost per day was Q14 per day.
Let’s add that up
The per day cost of owning a pair of slaves is:
Initial purchase, Q14 X 2 = Q28
Food = Q65
Housing = Q17
Medicine and the like = Q 5
Total =Q115
Meanwhile, the per day cost of paying current wages for a pair of independently contracted slaves in Guatemala at legal rates is:
Daily wage, Q52.5 X2 =Q105
Total = Q105
Is it any wonder slavery died out? Of course not. It is simple economics. Give folks their freedom to work where they want, but don’t give them the opportunity or the wage, and the business magnate can make more cash from paid labor instead of slave labor.
http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=363:a-days-work-for-a-slaves-wage-capitalism-now-cheaper-than-slavery&catid=31:franklins-world&Itemid=604
http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/images/stories/franklin.jpg
Workers’ living quarters on a coffee plantation.
Our farmers are entering the eye-opening world of employer-employee relationships. The economics are fascinating from a social justice standpoint. After two recent federal wage increases that have nearly doubled minimum wage in Guatemala, it is still cheaper to hire a Guatemalan in 2010 than it was to own a slave in the US in 1865.
Capitalism works. In fact, it works better than our most recent economic alternative, slavery. Slavery had some major downsides. For example, the plantation owner had to pay for the food the slave ate, had to put a roof over their head, give away a bed and blanket of sorts, even provide medicine to a slave when they were sick lest they lose a valuable commodity. With communal living of slaves, socialized medicine, free food, subsidized rent—those plantation owners were leftist bleeding hearts. They were lucky to turn a profit at all.
Now, good old-fashioned capitalism, with just a dash of red-blooded imperialism has proven to be a much better alternative to socialized slavery. The free market worker is cheaper to employ than a slave. Gone are the days of subsidizing a slave’s wage with food, medicine, and a place to stay. A worker must make it on a slave’s wage, or not at all.
Let me give you a quick example of why slavery was more expensive than free market labor. Let’s say Mom and Dad are slaves. They work in the fields all day for food for themselves and their two little babies, too young to work. That food today would be the equivalent of the canasta basica, or the amount of food it takes to feed a family of 4 for a day. Today in Guatemala, that’s Q65. Renting out even the meanest of shelters, mud floor, tin roof, cornstalk walls, will run you at least Q17 a day. By moving the relationship from owner to owner-employer, the boss no longer pays for medicine, blankets, furnishings, etc. Without a vested ownership in one particular slave, they can be let go during illness, family trouble, what have you—and replace them with one of the many unowned-unemployed. Call it Q5 per day in savings of medicine and the like, straight to the bottom line. How do you calculate the cost avoidance of not having to go to the auctioneer to buy a new slave, and simply wait for them to come to you, for no cost at all? How do you calculate the savings by not having lost work days when your slaves were sick or died? I can’t put a number on it, but it was substantial. Or how about the fact that those pesky slaves kept trying to run away, which was a constant drain on resources. Now those slav employees are running to the boss for work. That’s a substantial improvement.
Then there is the out-of-pocket expense of buying the slave in the first place. In the 1860’s, a healthy young male in the US ran $1500, while a female was $1000. Even slave women hit that glass ceiling, but that’s a different article. Let’s call it $1250 on average, and adjust for inflation, and you’ve got $29611 in 2009 dollars or an even Q240,000 in 2009 quetzales. If you get 50 years of work, 7 days a week from that slave, your cost per day was Q14 per day.
Let’s add that up
The per day cost of owning a pair of slaves is:
Initial purchase, Q14 X 2 = Q28
Food = Q65
Housing = Q17
Medicine and the like = Q 5
Total =Q115
Meanwhile, the per day cost of paying current wages for a pair of independently contracted slaves in Guatemala at legal rates is:
Daily wage, Q52.5 X2 =Q105
Total = Q105
Is it any wonder slavery died out? Of course not. It is simple economics. Give folks their freedom to work where they want, but don’t give them the opportunity or the wage, and the business magnate can make more cash from paid labor instead of slave labor.
http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=363:a-days-work-for-a-slaves-wage-capitalism-now-cheaper-than-slavery&catid=31:franklins-world&Itemid=604