The US Civil War can be fruitfully seen as a dispute between capitalists over which was the more sustainable system of labor control. Northern capitalists won, which proves they were right about the nonsustainability of slavery.

Slavery isn't sustainable compared to coerced wage labor, but while it works it's way more profitable. Which doesn't mean they wouldn't chain you up in their fields and factories tomorrow morning if they could pull it off. They can't, but that's the only reason they don't.

#Slavery #WageLabor #WageLabour #Capitalism #Labor #LaborControl #CivilWar #USCivilWar #NineteenthCentury #Abolition