Slaves are only more expensive upfront. Long run it’s far cheaper considering they will have kids that you then also own. There is a reason why those inbred chicken shit sister fuckers in the south had slaves instead of paying farm workers.
considering they will have kids that you then also own.
Only in the fucked-up american version of slavery. It was never sustainable long-term.
Brazil also had that fucked up thing. A slave’s children were owned by the same asshole that owned the slave. It was only around the 1850s, decades before the full emancipation (1888), that all newborn children were considered free. It didn’t mean much in most cases, since the mother being a slave meant the entire cost of caring for her kid would eventually become a debt to them