† 6. Historians generally believe that slave labor is less productive than free labor. Analyze this contention. Consider proposals that wage rates should reflect “comparable worth” rather than supply and demand. Some states and other political jurisdictions have already accepted this principle for determining salaries of public employees. A flourishing business of comparable-worth consultants provides formulas to compute salaries in accordance with the knowledge and skill required, the complexity of the task, the physical demands of the job, and so forth. But these various formulas differ drastically from one another. Is there any way of objectively determining comparable worth apart from supply and demand? What consequences would you anticipate if a wage set in accordance with comparable worth diverged from that indicated by supply and demand?