I am confused. You asserted that paid labor systems are so much more efficient that they can easily overcome a forced labor system such as slavery.
I point out that no such paid labor system to produce cotton existed (successfully) until the forced labor system was blockaded out of the market.
It seems to me we have an adequate control group in this Universe.
I point out that China uses slave labor, and they undercut a lot of other markets in the world in manufacturing products, such as IPhones, Shoes, etc.
I think it is wishful thinking to believe that paid labor can actually compete with forced labor in labor intensive production. I think forced labor has a distinct economic advantage if you just ignore human rights issues surrounding it.
And so many people are perfectly content to ignore the morality of it so long as they make a profit.
Egypt also used forced labor, a small percent sub Saharan slaves but mostly local townspeople coerced to work large estates (aka peasants in a feudal system.) I doubt the pay was that great.
“ I point out that no such paid labor system to produce cotton existed (successfully) until the forced labor system was blockaded out of the market.”
That’s not exactly what you said. You said:
“ So why did England have to wait until the Union navy blockaded the South to open their paid labor cotton plantations in Egypt and India?
The control group would be a South that was never blockaded and changed to wage labor voluntarily. If that had happened would the English plantations have been competitively viable?
Obviously they are viable if a competing business, slave or wage, is physically shut down.
After the Civil War Brazil didn’t become King of Cotton. In fact the South did. Textile Mills even moved from New England to the South so all aspects of the industry became Southern.
You obviously make a good point about specific benefits slave labor or near slave labor can provide certain industries. Today robotics is an analogous situation.
But there is always a greater context and other costs associated with offshore manufacturing. Would iPhones made locally necessarily end up being that much more or less profitable? Hard to say.