re: #311 Belafon

Owning slaves was more profitable than not owning them even if it wasn’t an efficient use of labor. Not paying for labor, if you can make them put more in that it takes you to manage them, is profitable.

Don’t forget, you still have to feed and house them well enough that they remain healthy enough to work. Add to that the built-in inefficiency of slave labor (“so what’s in it for me?”) and the difference may not be so great. Gilded Age industrialists amassed enormous fortunes too.

I know there were a few southerners who tried other “models” than the standard plantation slavery, it would be interesting to find out how they worked out.