George, People just don't seem to understand that in most cases the difference between and employee and a slave, is that yes the employee does have the possibility of quiting if the circumstance permit where a slave doesn't.

The bigger difference is that the factory boss doesn't give $.02 about his employee because the boss has no investment of his capital in that employee. The employee can quit and the Boss says "So What, I just hire some other poor slob for minimum wage to do my dirty work."

On the other hand the slave owner has to make asizable up front investment in the slave before he ever get one cent of production from that slave. To get that investment back the slave has to be able to do his work, and his support and upkeep is totally at the slave owners expense. Therefore the slave owner had a vested interest in the welfare of his workforce. Slave ownership was not Cheap labor, but factory work was cheap labor.

My dad would talk about working hauling slabs for a lumber mill 12 hours a day 7 days a week for $.50 a day during the depression and supporting 5 people on that because there were no other jobs. All I can say is that sometimes life is tough and many workers in the North and in the picture that you showed would have wished they could have had the life of a slave at times.