reply to post by AugustusMasonicus
My assumptions are not based on faulty data. The topic of this thread is not based on the subject you and I are discussing.
*Edit* In actuality I don't think there is a way for either of us to know for sure if my data or your data is faulty. Either numbers could have been
altered or just plain inaccurate from the beginning. I agree with you that census technology was probably not very accurate in the time period we are
discussing, even today it's not perfect.
Putting that aside 80% is not all that different than 90% anyway, who is to say that the 80% of workers you are talking about did not simply 'work' in
their own personal open fields without having been employed by someone else? When you think about it in the year 1900 the 'slaves' had not been 'free'
for all that long anyway, I'm sure they didn't all go out and get jobs right away. Moreover, and you probably have an idea on this, were freed slaves
even counted in the census at that time?
I think the two of us simply disagree on what the term workers means. Personally I don't find that to be a particularly interesting subject to
discuss, but to each their own I always say. Anyway to me the term worker means a person that works for a living, as in they earn money from their
job. A person that simply supported his own family by building his own home and farming his own land did not actively sell items and thus was not
working for a living or considered a worker.
Anyway, you sound like an intelligent person and being as how you're on ATS I'm sure you're not ignorant either. Do you have any comments regarding my
original or second post on this thread because I am interested in hearing what you have to say on those subjects.
edit on 1-4-2011 by Symbiot
because: Added some additional info
edit on 1-4-2011 by Symbiot because: (no reason given)