:33:00
A war in which unbelievably
huge amounts of money
:33:03
went right down the drain-
and all for textiles.
:33:06
By the 1860s, the South
was utterly flush with cash.
:33:10
It had recently benefited
from the cotton gin...
:33:13
an invention that took
the seeds out of cotton
:33:15
and the South
out of its pre-industrial past.
:33:18
Hundreds of thousands ofworkers
:33:20
previously unemployed
in their countries of origin
:33:22
were given useful jobs in textiles.
:33:25
Into this rosy picture of freedom
and boom stepped-you guessed it...
:33:29
the North.
:33:31
Now, some Civil War apologists have said
that the Civil War, for all its faults,
:33:35
at least had the effect of outlawing
:33:37
an involuntarily imported
workforce model of work.
:33:40
Now, this model is, of course,
a terrible thing.
:33:42
I myself am an abolitionist.
:33:44
But, in fact, there is no doubt
that, left to their own devices,
:33:49
markets would've eventually replaced
slavery with cleaner sources of labor.
:33:54
To prove my point,
please join me
:33:56
on what Albert Einstein used to call
a thought experiment.
:34:00
Suppose involuntarily imported labor
had never been outlawed.
:34:04
That slaves still existed,
and that it were easy to own one.
:34:08
What do you think it would cost today
to profitably maintain a slave,
:34:12
say, here in Tampere?
:34:13
Let's see...a finished clothing set
costs $50 at the very least.
:34:19
Two meals from McDonald's
cost about $10.00.
:34:22
The cheapest small room
probably runs for about $250 a month.
:34:26
To function well, you have to pay
for your slave's health care.
:34:29
If its country of origin was polluted,
for example, that might run expensively.
:34:33
And, of course, what with
child labor laws here in Finland,
:34:36
much of the youth market
is simply not available.
:34:40
Now leave the same slave
back at home. Let's say Gabon.
:34:44
In Gabon, $10 pays
for two weeks of food.
:34:47
$250 pays for two years
of housing, not a month, at best.
:34:52
$50 pays for a lifetime
of budget clothing.
:34:56
And health care is,
of course, cheaper.
:34:58
On top of it all...youth can be
gainfully employed without restriction.