re lincoln slavery was re top ten tricks in article apr isc br isc br com steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes in article apr rigel econ uga edu depken rigel econ uga edu craig depken writes in article apr princeton edu glhewitt phoenix princeton edu gary livingston hewitt writes labor is a tough one labor is defined economically as the efforts both mental and physical of humans capital is defined as intermediate goods used to create other goods and services now if a slave is considered an intermediate good then the slave has now been dehumanized and is simply a machine not good for the anti slave i e pro human rights argument so slaves are humans and they produce labor sorry the question of defining slave labor is no tough er than defining the labor of a horse an ox or any other livestock both legally and economically in a slave economy slaves are not humans they are livestock can you provide some evidence that the slave states regarded slaves as not humans they were outside our society and similar phrases that basically meant that they didn t have to recognized as having the same rights as a free person but they were never considered not human to my knowledge like a horse that pulls a plow a slave s labor is the return on the capital required to purchase and feed him the parallel is so obvious i m not sure how you missed it after all its was the liberty to use their property as they saw fit that motivated southern planters to emphasize the importance of states rights if that were the case the slave states would not have passed so many laws that restricted the freedom of slave owners to do as they wished with their property examples laws prohibiting manumission without legislative grant laws prohibiting teaching slaves to read write craig steve hendricks domain steveh thor isc br com clayton e cramer uunet pyramid optilink cramer my opinions all mine relations between people to be by mutual consent or not at all
