The Lewis turning point is a situation in economic development where surplus rural labor is fully absorbed into the manufacturing sector. This typically causes agricultural and unskilled industrial real wages to rise. The term is named after economist W. Arthur Lewis. Shortly after the Lewis point, an economy requires balanced growth policies.
ARTHUR LEWIS’ CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT THINKING AND POLICY
A disponibilidade de mão de obra barata (não especializada), quase que ilimitada (trabalhadores migrando do campo para as cidades, por exemplo) é um ativo econômico que tem grande importancia para estágios iniciais de crescimento economico.
Um país pode se beneficiar dessa oferta de mão de obra ilimitada/barata, porque isso reduz muito o custo de produção, mas isso tem um limite, isto é, a partir de um certo grau de desenvolvimento economico, utilizar esse tipo de mão de obra não vai trazer crescimento econômico.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvKqumRTpFY
~ trabalho escravo não gera crescimento econômico.
John Elliott Cairnes, an economist, reckoned that slavery stifled economic growth in the South. Cairnes argued that reluctant workers depleted soils more quickly. In addition, scientific agriculture was impossible. Reluctant slaves, with little interest in learning, had no interest in using new farming techniques. And this meant that Southern farms lost competitiveness to their Northern counterparts.
Economies which used slavery may, in the long run, have been at a disadvantage. Some analyses suggest that the economic contradictions of slavery led to its inevitable demise.
https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2013/09/27/did-slavery-make-economic-sense
While slavery may make high profits for a small number of slaveholders, we argue that the practice tends to disproportionately depress a country’s economy. Since the work of slaves is generally concentrated at the lowest end of the economic ladder in basic, low-skill jobs that are dirty and dangerous, slave output contributes little to national production.
Slaves are normally not able to acquire assets or access credit and just as it is for the free working poor, credit access and asset acquisition are key determining factors for achievement of economic autonomy. Except in the way they benefit criminals, we assert that slaves, though practically invisible, exert a strong, negative pull on local and national economies through their lack of full economic participation
Slavery is Bad for Business: Analyzing the Impact of Slavery on National Economies
Anderson, R. V., & Gallman, R. E. (1977). Slaves as Fixed Capital: Slave Labor and Southern Economic Development. The Journal of American History,64(1), 24-46.
Conrad, A. H., & Meyer, J. R. (1958). The economics of slavery in the ante bellum South. The Journal of Political Economy, 66(2), 95-130.
Fogel, R.W. & Engerman, S.L. (1974) Time on the cross: The economics of American Negro slavery. WW Norton & Company.
Genovese, E. D. (1976). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The world the slaves made. Random House.
Govan, T. P. (1942). Was Plantation Slavery Profitable?The Journal of Southern History, 8(4), 513-535.
North, D.C. (1961). The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860. Harper & Row.
Williams, E. (1944) Capitalism and slavery. University of North Carolina Press.