Southern States used slavery because it was cheap and easy in the short run but it stopped them from industrializing.
Short term gain - long term disaster - the paradigm of all addictions from alcoholism to gambling to disastrous financial decisions.
Feels good in the short term - disaster in the long term. Cheap labor: Probably the main reason the South lost the civil war.
In today's world Mexico's a perfect example - it's the land of 'cheap labor'. Mexicans will happily work for a buck an hour... and their country is a hellhole. A few rich and many dirt poor.
Cheap labor's a short term addictive fix that stops better solutions.... Why develop and pay for research to create a machine that picks cherries and grapes when labor is cheap?
Mass production and industrialization made our country powerful not the labor of slaves or slaves/lite Mexicans...
I read a scary fact the other day....
Less than 400,000 Africans were brought to the US. Look at their impact today.
3.45 MILLION muslim immigrants are currently residents of the US. 115,000 muslims became US citizens in 2009 alone.
Islam is expected to be the predominate religion in the US by the end of this century.
Can you imagine the impact that will happen? Why we may even have a muslim president one day.
Oh wait...