[The Westerner]

I thought about Chinese slaves, as well. We are living well thanks to them.

On a deeper level though, regulation and taxation of business in the United States is what drove us into the use of slave labor. In the cold war, no one did business with Russia. Dealing with Communists was immoral. Today, faced with a declining standard of living thanks to government intervention in the economy, we have done away with that moral imperative.

[lelio]

On a deeper level though, regulation and taxation of business in the United States is what drove us into the use of slave labor.

I don't think that regulation or taxation drove people to buy clothes make from cotton picked in the South by slaves before the civil war -- it was price.

And just like before when people thought the cotton gin would end slavery (a machine can do the work of hundreds of people!) people now clammer around the idea that capitalism will somehow move China towards a democracy.