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Monday, July 11, 2022

Fascinating Book

Vince Beiser The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization.   On pp.60-1 he describes how a greedy capitalist named Owens largely eliminated child labor in the glass bottle manufacturing business by inventing a machine that took nearly all the skilled labor and time out of making glass bottles.   The bottle maker unions pushed children out of the workplace to reserve the best paying jobs for adults.  Even do-gooder groups gave him more credit for eliminating child labor than their efforts.  Self-interest can often yield public good.  All the leftists quoting Gordon Gekko "Greed is good" need to consider the real world not just the world that Hollyweird shows them.

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