Thoughts on Slavery and the Welfare State.
 

Why didn't the Founders, including those who owned slaves and most of whom believed slavery was morally wrong, immediately free the slaves? Among the reasons given besides the obvious need to appease the slave states was the belief that chaos would follow such immediate emancipation. There was no perceived employment market for a sudden vast number of unemployed people. And most of those people were bred and psychologically accustomed to being provided for by their masters. And there most likely was also inbred an inherent hate for the society that had enslaved them. It was assumed that time and progress would somehow solve that.

A war later occurred to speed up the process of emancipation.

The Reconstruction by government to enforce that emancipation did seem to show that former slaves could be part of a civil society and could contribute to its market. But those who morally still believed Blacks were inferior and could not, or should not, fend for themselves (and who yearned for the blissful time of white domination and enforced labor of the inferior race) gained enough political power to end that Reconstruction and thwart the financial and personal growth of free blacks. And they truly believed, or convinced themselves to believe, as did the masters of the slave era, that Blacks were actually better off at the mercy and control of the superior race rather than having to cope for themselves. So they hoped somehow, in some way, to return to the correct and righteous societal order.

But, without another war, slavery was off the table.

Even so, since blacks were free, they managed to use that freedom to, in their own way, become a productive part of the larger society, much of which still didn't accept them. The resistance, of course, created a backlash of resentment, and hate, in most Blacks. Some of that hate was subliminal, some on the surface. But, even so, progress was being made. Even with resistance against them, being free, they managed to thrive at comparable rates to non-blacks, and at far better rates than imagined by those who thought them inferior.

Blacks, once considered as being capable only of being a slave or else an unproductive, unruly, savage, backward race, were flourishing and participating in the bustling ride of freedom enjoyed by common men as had not been seen in any advanced societies of the past.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the freedom forum.

There was this notion evolving that progress had also evolved to the point where individuals no longer needed, nor were even capable of, the freedom to run and define their own lives--technology, massive centers of power and intricacy, with all the knowledge and expertise needed to wind one's way through such a maze made the individual impotent in shaping his own destiny, or even the wherewithal to survive. At least not in any fair and equitable way.

What was needed, said these progressive thinkers, was an unchecked bureaucracy with expertise in all the important facets of life, to guide and care for those incapable of doing so for themselves. And "those" were massive in number. They being the citizens who were not in control of the various financial and political centers of power.

There was a long struggle to convince "those" that such a system was needed. That it was the fair way to make everyone happy. That individual freedom hampered the experts from giving us all what we truly needed. That so-called checks and balances in and of government stopped it from doing what was needed to give us, again, what we truly needed. The struggle was aided by crises, which were prolonged by government interference, and, increasingly were triggered by government programming and control of lives and the marketplace. The crises were used to convince us that government was more and more needed and in greater and greater quantities and power. And we more and more were convinced that this was true.

So we are at a point now where, it appears (falsely in my opinion) there is no perceived employment market for a large number of blacks (as thought the Founders). And why are so many Blacks psychologically dependent on the mastery of government as were those slaves who depended on their masters? And why does it appear that there is an inbred and inherent hate in blacks for the society that had once enslaved them as the Founders feared would happen with emancipation? And why hasn't the emancipator's assumption that time and progress would somehow solve all that has not happened yet?

Why do so many of the descendants of the original slaves appear, as the original racists proclaimed, not capable of actual freedom, but need the control and largesse of another type of master in order to be happy. And why so do so many of the rest of us?

We are told that the "middle class" is disappearing. Interesting how that happens as government gets greater control and assumes the power to dictate the "important" things in our lives.

And, interesting as well, we are told that the inferior condition of blacks in our society is due to their heritage of slavery. The legacy of being controlled by and dependent on their masters. Masters who believed that Blacks were actually better off at the mercy of the superior class rather than having to cope for themselves. Why, in response to the question of what to do with the slaves after emancipation did Frederick Douglass say "Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone"?

Are Blacks better off now being dependent on mastery of government to improve their lives than they were when they were actually free of such dependence? And are they being trapped into a new heritage of dependence on new masters to keep them from thriving as did their heritage of slavery to the old masters?

Why are we still waiting for an elusive time and progress, hoping, that somehow, in some way, we will achieve a correct and righteous societal order?

Too much $ to be made
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Slavery still exists. It's everywhere. It's called minimum wage. People work their entire life just to survive.

Open your eyes.
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Progressives, not free marketers, were the ones who created minimum wage.

Stop reading Salon and open your eyes.

I don't care who created it.
My point is that there's a huge amount of working slaves out there.
Maybe you are one of them and don't realize it. :hihi:
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pretty sure this is true for every creature on earth

Did you ever have a minimum wage job, and if so, how did you free yourself from the "Shackles of Slavery"?
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Well, there's the word "slave" used to denote someone, and there's the same word used in a connotative or metaphorical way. Your usage here is the latter type. My post is using "slave" as the denotation of a specific human condition--for instance this definition found on the net: "a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them."

A denotative slave has no choice, is not consenting to how he is governed by his master. He is coerced, forced. Your connotative slave has a choice. He consents. And if the conditions under which he lives literally forces him to choose either being a slave or dying, then he is living under the condition of some tyranny, not under freedom.

If you would want to live as an agent rather than a slave, then you would want your choice of government to be limited, to not have the power of coercing you into either literal (denotative) or metaphorical (connotative) slavery. And if you would want your market, your economy, to be free and flexible enough to create enough abundance and choice to avoid either form of slavery, you would want a government that protected the freedom of the market to provide that, not a form of government that restricts the freedom of the market.

If you understand that Progressive government is about government control of all aspects of your economy and your life, under the belief (ruse in my opinion) that its experts know best and better what is good and proper for everyone, you might understand why it insists on a minimum wage. And this understanding may help you to see the similarity between slavery (denotative) and the welfare state.

My post tried to suggest that similarity, even pointing out the irony of the progressive notion that Blacks cannot escape the heritage of slavery without government erasing it for them, but, ironically, they are creating a new heritage of dependency by not allowing them and the rest of us to be our own agents in society. Benevolent government mastery of our lives under the pretense that government knows best what's good for us replaces those slave-masters who thought they knew what was best and good for their slaves. In effect, by law, by force of government, we become the legal property of that government and are forced to obey it--the denotative definition of slavery as quoted above.

I edited the post to try to make that clearer. Maybe was too long winded and incompetent in the first place.

Too long winded ? You? Naaahhh.

Share cropping is a great example of my point. The slaves were freed but some were given the choice to rent land from their former owners and work it. Not much changed there... they were free but still enslaved by the system.
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For purposes of clarity, please be a bit more long winded about what you mean by "the system."

WOW you really think Blacks were Free after the civil war and during Jim crow and during segregation only 50 years ago ..

Only on paper ... your love for semantics word games is truly amazing .. I thought the one about Fault and Blame was interesting

But this one is impressive its their fault the Blacks for not taking their Freedom and doing something with it..? when History has show they only had freedom on paper not in Practice from the governments Local state and Federal in the states in which they reside

I see no one responded to this meaningful, challenging, fair question.

Nebe, not every single job in our society, can pay a wage that an adult can live on. The guy who owns a small pizza parlor, cannot pay his busboy and cashier, $40,000 a year. The math doesn't work, not even close.

I rose above minimum wage by listening to people who I trusted, who told me how to live a stable life. It's harder than it should be, there are more pitfalls and traps than there should be, but its within reach of most of us.

Do they have freedom now, at this moment?

What are they doing with that freedom?

Black children born to stable homes with two parents committed to the family, tend to be just fine. White kids born to unstable single mothers, tend to struggle.

It's not about race (well, race plays a role, but t's not all about race). It's about the culture you embrace.