Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Yes. In fact, there's also a strong argument that slavery retarded technological, economic and industrial development, since it meant that, rather than develop more efficient technology, they could just chuck manpower at the problem.
The same can be said for any economy dependent on low labour costs. One of the reasons this country has flat-lined on productivity is that there is no incentive to develop more efficient capital when there is an inexhaustible supply of cheap, imported labour.