In the beginning there was labor in order to survive. Later there were those who could not withstand back-breaking work and soon forged weaponry to control others to do the work for them. Out of this forced labor grew primeval civilization—the rule of men—subjugating the powerless to its bidding through the division of labor from which sprang the few with talent and skills developing a hierarchy of labor that increased productivity and its own limited stature though still under the thuggery of the powerful who still regarded labor as machinery requiring limited maintenance but no human value.
There is still vestiges of this in today’s global economy even to the extent of hoodwinking the illegal crossing of our own borders in order to create an over supply of cheap, unskilled labor. As early as the ’30s the US began to import Arabian oil and strategically, except for WWII, proceeded to abandon untapped domestic oil reserves deemed uncompetitive. Even in the ’70s when OPEC balked and quadrupled its price per barrel, it was not sufficient incentive for domestic oil to compete. The already low labor costs of southern state factories were not enough to prevent profiteers—who still regard the rule of law secondary to the rule of men—from going abroad to search for the lowest denominator of labor bereft of human value.
Copyright © 2008 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: July 26, 2008.
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