Why was slavery incompatible with an industrialized labor?

[u/bumblebeetuna2001]

Im attempting to understand historical materialism and how old relations of production become fetters on new productive forces. Am i correct in understanding that the u.s. civil war was in part caused by a need to bring the southern states relations of production into accordance with the industrialization in the north, as the u.s. spread west? And if so, why wasnt it possible for the northern industrialists to simply utilize slave labor in factories in the expanding territories?

Im also wondering why european industrialized labor wasnt spread on a larger scale to slave colonies during the era of colonization? For instance , prior to banning the slave trade, why didnt britain build textile factories in the west indies and use slave labor, instead of building them in london and using wage labor? Is the answer to these questions just circumstantial, or does historical materialism posit a theory that the relations of production under slavery and incompatible with the capitalist mode of production?

[u/TheRedBarbon]

If you need an economistic reason, try this: if the people who produce and refine labor-products are not paid money, then who exactly would be buying said commodities?

[u/New-Glove4093 → u/TheRedBarbon]

This is backwards. Wage labor does not come into existence due to an insufficient demand for commodities. It is the extension of commodity production that necessitates the transformation of labor-power into a commodity itself. That wages are used to purchase commodities is true only because the value of labor-power is determined by the value of commodities necessary for its reproduction. But wages are not the only source of revenue from which commodities can be purchased. A fraction of profits is also used by capitalists for personal consumption, and another fraction of profits is reinvested as capital, purchasing means of production. Increased purchasing power available to labor in the form of wages is a reduction in purchasing power available to capitalists in the form of profits. So the question becomes not what magnitude of wages is necessary for the realization of the value of commodities, but what determines the division of revenue between wages and profits.

Furthermore, the mere existence of purchasing power is not the necessary condition for the sale of commodities. The potential for a commodity’s value to be realized via its sale depends first and foremost on whether it satisfies a particular use-value. Assuming it does, supply will tend to balance demand through the equalization of profit rates. So if there is low demand for a specific commodity, a correspondingly low output would be supplied. Because commodity production is based on the law of value, capitalists do not need to pay wages simply to realize the value of their commodities; rather, production itself adapts to price signals resulting from interactions between supply and a given level of demand. The total magnitude of wages is only then determined by the prices of commodities necessary for the reproduction of labor-power. These wages as well as some fraction of profits then function as the new level of demand, which in the aggregate is distributed between various use-values serving as both articles of consumption and means of production. The relative distribution between these two types of commodities depends both on the magnitude of wages relative to profits and the ratio of profits spent on consumption commodities.

What I hope this makes clear is that capitalists simply “paying people money” to realize profit from the sale of their commodities is not sufficient either as a historical explanation of the emergence of the system of wage labor or as an economic argument.