re: #399 Pie-onist Overlord

I would agree that “wage slavery” came about in the North as a more cost-effective alternative to ACTUAL slavery. Slave owners, after all, did have to feed, clothe and shelter their chattels. Mill/mine owners could pay their workers whatever a desperate work-seeker was willing to accept, and out of that they had to pay for food, housing and everything else at the “company store.”

That was George Pullman’s method, until it lead to some seriously nasty strikes and riots in Chicago in 1894. Pullman ended up so hated by his workers that he was buried in a concrete, iron, and steel fortress of a tomb to prevent vengeful employees from digging up his body and selling it for dissection.