Today’s BLOG post isn’t a rant. It’s an appeal to thinking people in America to revisit with open minds the role slavery played in the development of the American nation. If you are a regular listener to NPR, you probably have already made a mental note to yourself to find out more about the thesis of a new book, The Half Has Not Been Told, by Edward Baptist in which he argues that capturing people, principally from Africa, and bringing them to the United States and subsequently subjecting them to harsh treatment as slaves in the cotton fields “was integral to establishing the United States as a world economic power.” Baptist said to Jeremy Hobson, “Slavery continues to have an impact on America in the most basic economic sense. We don’t want to hear that at its root, the economic growth (of the United States), depends to a large extent on slavery.”
Today I’m going out to buy Edward Baptist’s book. I’ve read Jeremy Hobson’s review in NPR’s “Here and Now,” and I recommend it:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/11/19/slavery-economy-baptist
Short of turning this post into an actual rant, I will stop by pointing out that capitalism as it has been and continues to be practiced in America favors the richest citizens at the expense of people at the bottom of the economic ladder. The political tug of war between our two major political parties over a proposed minimum wage law is a remnant of the slave market. One party insists that the marketplace is a better guide to nation building than a government dedicated to the welfare of all the people. The federal minimum wage in the U.S. is $7.20 per hour. In California on July 1, 2014, the minimum wage was set at $9.00 an hour. On January 1, 2015, in San Diego the minimum wager will jump from $9 an hour to $9.75; it will reach $11.50 by 2017. It is common practice for many employers to limit employees to no more than 30 hours a week to avoid paying benefits such as vacation time, retirement, and health insurance.
Today slavery takes other forms in the American marketplace. Take a look at a report (Wage Theft Cases Yield Results) by Tiffany Hsu and Marc Lifsher in the Business section of the November 19th L.A. Times.
Maybe it’s time to reread Frank Norris’ 1901 novel, The Octopus: A Story of California.
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