Comparing Slavery to the Modern Day Sweatshops

An enormous amount of differing opinions and varied conflicts ultimately caused that Civil War that historians have reviewed and analyzed to this day. One of the most influential topics that sparked the Civil War was slavery and the morality of the illegal trafficking from Africa. Despite slavery increasing farms' output and tilting the economy positively, many Northerners opposed the inhumane order that is slavery. These extreme and radical points of views resulted in rebellion, protest, and the rise of abolitionists. Today, although slavery has been legally abolished and eradicated, a more subtle facsimile remains. Numerous third world and pitiable countries rely on systematizing sweatshops to increase their capital in the slightest. "Employees" in these deprived, sickening environments are paid next to nothing to work precariously. Similar to slaves two hundred years ago, sweatshop workers today are beaten, cursed, and forced to work absurd hours. Instead of working in fields endlessly picking cotton, though, the majority of foreign sweatshop workers are paid pennies to sew, assemble, and accumulate products that eventually can be found on store shelves in the United States.

When the rise of abolitionists began, the South attempted to justify their ideals by referring to biblical passages that seemingly supported slavery. They mainly utilized St. Paul's writings and believed that whites had been put into power over blacks by God. Other southerners aimed the spotlight at the positives of slavery, including the extravagant economical output of the South after expanding slave plantations. Despite these two focal defenses, some southerners were inherently and genuinely racist. On the other hand, northerners wished to abolish and eliminate slavery. The North did not rely on slaves as much, because New England and surrounding states were much more industrialized than the South. Many people in the North thought that slavery was inhumane and was not something in favor of the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Parallel to slavery, there is an extreme populace that supports these callous work practices. Some people believe that a sweatshop is a better than several alternatives, even absolute unemployment. "I'd love to get a job in a factory," Pim Srey Rath told the New York Times in February of last year. "At least that work is in the shade. Here is where it's hot." Rath, a 19-year-old, scavenges the Cambodian garbage depository in one hundred degree temperatures during her day job. Others support the economical upside of sweatshops. Despite only paying cents to effective employees, hundreds of mainstream stores and manufacturers in the United States are benefited by these circumstances.

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