>this was written in 1917
Why the fuck has everyone in America and even California been okay with basically slave labor in the agricultural industries? It seems like of all the shitty jobs that existed 100 years ago, only farm labor remains as shitty and poorly regulated today as it was back then.
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>even California
*Especially
Because Farm labor is done mostly by migrant workers, either legal ones or illegal. There's a reason why California is so heavily invested in illegal immigration, and it's not because they have big hearts
Because user, we can get that food for super cheap and sell it abroad. So the public is complacent with the system.
That and the fact that farmers have built upon this system for decades. We try to rip it away, food prices skyrocket, farmers go out of business, and the politicians have to answer to a pissed of public who wants to know why milk is 12 bucks. No one wants to be that guy
It is cheap and people like money
Everybody wants good working conditions but nobody wanna eat expensive ass food
I also want to add that American food is important internationally. We have a TON of farming land. To give you an idea, most of the rice in China comes from the Carolinas. Food aid to African countries often is American food. Rip away that cheap labor, and the effects on the system will be felt worldwide.
There's literally no reason why treating farm labor like a 9 to 5 job and regulated like any other manual labor industry (with associated minimum wage) would cause 12 dollar milk.
>Rip away that cheap labor, and the effects on the system will be felt worldwide.
Good desu. Surplus populations that literally can't even exist except for handouts from foreign countries shouldn't exist.
I was just throwing out a price user. Don’t take it too seriously. My point is food would get more expensive by a bit.
The only negative effect would be smaller profit margins for big agribusiness.
That or full-automation of the fields. Which wouldn't be bad either since it would cut back on illegal immigration dramatically.
I agree. But the US gov subsidizes farmers to such a degree that it’s unlikely they’d ever change that.
/thread
Some things have yet to be automated. And this is America we’re talking about here. Land of “greed is good”. Those fat cat Corps would kill their first borns before they except smaller margins.
*accept
You're logical but you're also an inhuman pos.
Cheap labor is more profitable in agriculture than investing in capital.
Exact same reason why the South failed to industrialize
Humanism is retarded. Take your arbitrary admiration for your conspecifics and shove it up your ass
Those people are born to suffer miserable lives in places where they can't even grow their own food because of subsidized food shipped from thousands of miles away and I'M the bad guy?
Welcome to global neoliberalism, enjoy your stay
Slavery was a mistake.
I don't care what you think user.
>There's a reason why California is so heavily invested in illegal immigration, and it's not because they have big hearts
This, it's pretty disgusting how "liberals" in California are useful idiots for big Ag.
Its not just big Ag, they get their lawns mowed, toilets cleaned, kids taken care of, food cooked, etc. for pocket change.
Really disgusting to be perfectly honest
Farm hands get paid by the hour or for the work they do on the farm. Farmers themselves get money through selling their product or other things.
Okay? And how is that different from literally any properly regulated business?
...
Because farming is also heavily impacted by forces effectively out of man's hands.
This is part of the reason why small independent farmers have pretty much disappeared from America. The romantic image of middle class mom&pop farms exists only in the movies now, it's all owned by Monsanto and Cargill now.
That could be said for a lot of industries.
Its kinda weird because farmers with huge amounts of land are actually usually opposed to the immigration which gives them their cheap labor. It really makes no sense.
>Its kinda weird because farmers with huge amounts of land are actually usually opposed to the immigration which gives them their cheap labor.
Not really, most "farmers" in California are just leaseholders or caretakers/managers for lands owned by the big guys.
>farmers with huge amounts of land are actually usually opposed to the immigration
Proof?
>Its kinda weird because farmers with huge amounts of land are actually usually opposed to the immigration which gives them their cheap labor. It really makes no sense.
Isn't that because its easier to threaten illegal immigrants with deportation if they try to unionise?
They love immigration, but they love specifically ILLEGAL immigration.
>pay the workers below minimum wage pricing native workorce out
>don't have to follow safety regulations because there's no union to enforce them
>cities and towns create sanctuary laws meaning local cops can't report the illegals to immigration if they bust them for whatever
It's literally slavery.
That too, but they will never report them to the ICE, because it would land them in prison for harboring and employing illegals. Threatening them with ICE is just scare tactics.
This is why Cesar Chavez literally had picket lines at the US border and UFW members got into physical fights with illegal immigrants trying to reach CA fields. Even Chavez (at least early in his career) understood that it was impossible to organize a farm labor union as long as illegal immigrants flooded the labor market and were willing to work for shit pay in shit conditions.
The UFW during Chavez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration. Chavez and Dolores Huerta, cofounder and president of the UFW, fought the Bracero Program that existed from 1942 to 1964. Their opposition stemmed from their belief that the program undermined U.S. workers and exploited the migrant workers. Since the Bracero Program ensured a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor for growers, immigrants could not protest any infringement of their rights, lest they be fired and replaced. Their efforts contributed to Congress ending the Bracero Program in 1964.
On a few occasions, concerns that illegal immigrant labor would undermine UFW strike campaigns led to a number of controversial events, which the UFW describes as anti-strikebreaking events, but which have also been interpreted as being anti-immigrant. In 1969, Chavez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of illegal immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.[citation needed] In its early years, the UFW and Chavez went so far as to report illegal immigrants who served as strikebreaking replacement workers (as well as those who refused to unionize) to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[17][18][19][20][21] In 1973, the United Farm Workers set up a "wet line" along the United States-Mexico border to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally and potentially undermining the UFW's unionization efforts.[22]
>just now realizing that liberals have no problem with slavery
Hah. Slavery was not profitable.
Read J.S. Mill or think about it for two seconds
Exactly. But the issue isn’t liberals or democrats. That’s why economics is so interesting. Because if you analyze it there are more than two angles every which way.
But yeah the whole Californian luxury mentality makes people get treated like shit at the bottom of the Transamerica Bilderberg corporation Nation of the United States (TM)
>being surprised that a state ran by center-right corporate Neo-Liberals has borderline slavery
>center right
Only economically, socially they're full left.
Jerry Brown is the quintessential California liberal elitist, aka a corporate shill for big Ag and big oil while pretending to be an environmentalist and champion of human rights.
wtf? i love spics now
Legal Hispanics, especially the ones who have been in America for decades, hate illegal immigrants and recent arrivals. Why do you think Trump got 25% of the Hispanic vote?
You guys have it kind of turned around. The struggles of the immigrant farm-workers are one of the main reason so many liberals in California wanted more citizen protections for illegal immigrants in the first place. The idea is that these guys have earned their keep more than any of us, and if the feds wont budge on immigration then we can just give them as many protections as we can to make them defacto citizens. If Pedro is going to risk heat stroke in Fresno then the least we can do is let his kid go to a UC. In the same vein making it a sanctuary state removes the farmers ability to blackmail laborers into shitty conditions.
Also are we controlled by Mexicans or are Mexicans slaves/pawns? You guys can't seem to decide.
>Californians being hypocrites
What a revelation
All protections, except for a right to organize or ask for minimum wage.
As far as i understand the situation there's no legal route from illegal unkilled immigrant to citizenship, and any such policy would be a federal issue, something california doesn't have control over.
Yet they do oppose it when it comes to federal election time.
Migrant worker setups are all just explotive attacks on labor value and workers' rights at the end of the day.
Why not just stop all future illegal immigration? Why oppose it so much?
absolutely no one here grew up or has work on a farm. Its like a hog confinement. Lots of grunts by semi intelligent animals. Also i have nothing to do i live in Iowa.
Let me guess you voted Trump
I have.
We could always kill both the fat cat Corps AND their first borns and take their capital in order to fund said automation.
Or we could do all that and then destroy the industrial society.
It's bad enough that Big Ag brings in all the illegals in the state as farm labor, but it also uses all the state's water. When will the Eternal Slaver be held accountable for his crimes against the state?
>it also uses all the state's water.
Friendly reminder that Saudi owned Hay farms are using up huge amounts of Californias water table in order to grow straw hay... which they then ship back to Saudi Arabia :3
Source?
>CA farmers support radical Islam
Imagine my shock!
>To give you an idea, most of the rice in China comes from the Carolinas.
Sounds like some bullshit to me, considering China literally only agreed to let us export rice them 6 months ago.
If slavery wasn't profitable, why did people consistently invest in it over railroads and factories in the South?
They were doubling down on a shitty investment. If all of your capital is invested in slaves, you don't want to destroy that capital by abolishing it.
Its not old capital falling for the sunken cost fallacy, new capital was being consistently invested in plantations and slaves. That's why westward expansion was such a priority/sticking point for the south.
The fact that slave owners had to constantly expand west proved slavery was unsustainable.
Unsustainable in what way?
