What is being compared is the system that created and sustained slavery then, and what seems to be managements only way of dealing with costs today, to drive labor costs down and then live in a palace. They'll only be satisfied with zero labor costs and membership in the billionaire club. And THAT is sickening.
Slavery was a sustained and brutal atrocity against a class of people. It was driven by the addiction to the cost advantage it provided. Even after the Civil War, Jim Crow continued the abomination of racism right into our lifetimes.
The affects of it aren't something that was long ago and far away. They are here and now. The cheap labor this provided was so purvasive and complete--from the first settlements to the founding of our country to segragation--that it is now part of American corporate DNA. Corporate American just can't seem to shake the idea that lower labor costs are the answers to all their problems and their ticket to American royalty.
It is pretty evident that laws designed to protect the worker's contract, benefits, pension, haven't been worth the paper they were printed on. Unions are just about the last thing left which has some hope of holding the degradation of the American worker in check. Why do you think corporate America is pulling out all the stops to prevent unionization? "If you pass this bill I won't buy 30 777s and 100,000 people will lose their jobs. Why? Because I said so." Talk about one man's outsized view of himself! He'll put thousands of workers on the street because he wants it all. Nothing more than blackmail.[/QUOTE
liberal arts college, right? capitalists bad communist good!!! he who makes more than I do shall be burned at the stake or shot with golden bullets...? praise be to akers?