Most of them have
ignored the subject of slavery altogether, and the concern of the rest with
it has been merely incidental. Nicholson, for example, alludes to it as[21]
"one of the earliest and one of the most enduring forms of poverty," and
again as "the original and universal form of bankruptcy." Smart deals with
it only as concerns the care of workingmen's children: "The one good thing
in slavery was the interest of the master in the future of his workers.
The children of the slaves were the master's property. They were always at
least a valuable asset.... But there is no such continuity in the
relation between the employer [of free labor] and his human cattle. The
best-intentioned employer cannot be expected to be much concerned about the
efficient upkeep of the workman's child when the child is free to go where
he likes.... The child's future is bound up with the father's wage. The
wage may be enough, even when low, to support the father's efficiency, but
it is not necessarily enough to keep up the efficiency of the young laborer
on which the future depends."[22] Loria deals more extensively with
slavery as affected by the valuation of labor,[23] and Gibson[24] examines
elaborately the nature of hypothetically absolute slavery in analyzing the
earnings of labor.
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