[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Left and right agree that industrial progress happens when human work is replaced by machine work. Instead of sweat, blood, and tears, we input oil, coal, and machinery, to get a much larger output. But inventing and buying machines is risky and expensive, so nobody does it if workers are cheap enough. That's why the South, with cheap slave labor, didn't industrialize as much as the slaveless north. It's why the ancient world, with all of those cheap slaves, stayed right on the brink of industrial revolution, even though they understood steam power and the piston engine (in China they even produced chrome and drilled for oil).

So, high labor costs drive innovation. Cheap labor leads to being economically outcompeted, and militarily defeated. But labor rights are not the answer, for two reasons:

1. A highly-valued working class can't be treated as expendable in war: a huge disadvantage. It's why muslims get to use suicide bombers while our side panics with every single death. Notice there was no terrorism or other 3rd-world uppityness after WW1 showed them that Christians were willing to die in the millions for nothing more than national ego.

2. A well-paid working class wastes all it's money on booze and other immoral entertainments. Also, giving them a taste of money makes them greedy, and less contented.

So, how do we raise labor costs without making the inferior class get uppity?

The answer is payroll taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes that are paid by the working class. It will cost more to employ them, but they won't "drink their paychecks" because the money will be taxed and used for war and agricultural subsidies for Monsanto corporation. Everybody wins!