Capitalism was not built on slavery... capitalism is simple a method of producing and distributing goods and services produced by an economic system through the mechanism of a marketplace. It really is that simply.

In fact, slavery proved to be a very poor economic model and therefore was adopted primarily in southern states when a severe labor shortage due to "workers" moving "west" for free land threatened to bankrupt plantation owners.

In contrast, northern states adopted a different model which proved to be much more competitive. The importation of millions of immigrants to work their factories and to create a massive over supply of labor to keep wages low.

This strategy is not unlike that being used by some businesses today that support "open borders" in order to secure immigrant workers who will work for next to nothing.

Rush Limbaugh once made the most insightful observation of capitalism I have ever heard and to be clear, I am not a fan of Rush Limbaugh. What he said was capitalism is the most efficient way to produce goods and services that raise living standards ever invented, but capitalism relies on a strong sense of morality and ethics or it can become predatory...

I noted three examples of predatory behavior above... slavery, massive immigration, and unregulated illegal immigration. All three practices are "not the same", but they do end up in the exploitation of people for profit. In my experience most employers care about their employees and exercise the moral judgement under which capitalism thrives and workers prosper. But there are exceptions.

Because there are people willing to exploit there fellow citizens we have regulations. The goal of regulations should be to encourage capitalism and at the same time surround it with a fence designed to prevent abusive behavior.

So managing immigration levels protects workers and provides them "leverage" in wage negotiations. Making outsourcing to other countries less attractive likewise helps employees negotiate higher wages. Providing children growing up in poor communities access to education that makes them more competitive raises living standards of African Americans, which is why so many smart African American inner city mothers support charter schools.

On top of regulations and programs designed to make workers more "valuable", we need an economic system designed to make the products they produce more valuable so they can be paid more. This includes bringing in technology to support their productivity. To push employers and support higher wages, targeted minimum wage laws should be more dynamic... going up in places where labor is in short supply and going down in places where there is to much labor in competition (and replacing minimum wage with a system of earned income subsidies).

Bottom line, capitalism has not shafted African Americans... they have been taught that by people trying to "use" them to support a more socialist ideology... In many ways today's racial identity movement is a trojan horse. Progressive liberals know most Americans reject socialism... but if it can be packaged as social justice then it becomes more "attractive". Truth... it is not.

My biracial children and grandchildren are mixes of Asian, African, Hispanic, and White races. None have expressed the notion that somehow racism if holding them back in America... in fact, because they have or are getting excellent educations, they see a virtual "buffet" of opportunities...

I don't doubt that African Americans have been convinced that they are targets of "racism". But perhaps the truth is that they have been denied access to the benefits of capitalism by politicians in major cities that want to keep them dependent on government and therefore beholden to them. Capitalism represents the key to escape bondage. Socialsim and entitlements are the keys to imposing permanent economic slavery tied to dependence on government.