I dislike the misuse of the term “Slave labor”. Anyone who AGREES to do a job for WAGES is not a slave.
Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it.
Compared to the centuries of pre-capitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof…the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 per cent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 per cent per century.
The amount of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about Capitalism is such that the young people of today have no idea (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature.
If a detailed, factual study were made of all those instances in the history of American industry which have been used by the statists as an indictment of Capitalism and as an argument in favor of a government-controlled economy, it would be found that the actions blamed on Capitalism were caused, necessitated, and made possible only by government intervention in business.
The evils, popularly blamed on Capitalism, were not the result of an unregulated industry, but of government power over industry. The villain in the picture was not the businessman, but the legislator, not Capitalism, but government controls.