The Popular Interpretation of the "Industrial Revolution" - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily

The Popular Interpretation of the "Industrial Revolution" - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily: "The factories freed the authorities and the ruling landed aristocracy from an embarrassing problem that had grown too large for them. They provided sustenance for the masses of paupers. They emptied the poorhouses, the workhouses, and the prisons. They converted starving beggars into self-supporting breadwinners.

The factory owners did not have the power to compel anybody to take a factory job. They could only hire people who were ready to work for the wages offered to them. Low as these wage rates were, they were nonetheless much more than these paupers could earn in any other field open to them. It is a distortion of facts to say that the factories carried off the housewives from the nurseries and the kitchens and the children from their play. These women had nothing to cook with and to feed their children. These children were destitute and starving. Their only refuge was the factory. It saved them, in the strict sense of the term, from death by starvation."

"The factories turned to the production of more refined and therefore more expensive goods only at a later stage, when the unprecedented improvement in the masses' standard of living they had caused made it profitable to apply the methods of mass production also to these better articles."

"The outstanding fact about the Industrial Revolution is that it opened an age of mass production for the needs of the masses. The wage earners are no longer people toiling merely for other people's well-being. They themselves are the main consumers of the products the factories turn out. Big business depends upon mass consumption. There is, in present-day America, not a single branch of big business that would not cater to the needs of the masses. The very principle of capitalist entrepreneurship is to provide for the common man. In his capacity as consumer the common man is the sovereign whose buying or abstention from buying decides the fate of entrepreneurial activities. There is in the market economy no other means of acquiring and preserving wealth than by supplying the masses in the best and cheapest way with all the goods they ask for."

"The early industrialists were for the most part men who had their origin in the same social strata from which their workers came. They lived very modestly, spent only a fraction of their earnings for their households and put the rest back into the business. But as the entrepreneurs grew richer, the sons of successful businessmen began to intrude into the circles of the ruling class. The highborn gentlemen envied the wealth of the parvenus and resented their sympathies with the reform movement. They hit back by investigating the material and moral conditions of the factory hands and enacting factory legislation."

"Vast areas — Eastern Asia, the East Indies, Southern and Southeastern Europe, Latin America — are only superficially affected by modern capitalism. Conditions in these countries by and large do not differ from those of England on the eve of the "Industrial Revolution." There are millions and millions of people for whom there is no secure place left in the traditional economic setting. The fate of these wretched masses can be improved only by industrialization. What they need most is entrepreneurs and capitalists. As their own foolish policies have deprived these nations of the further enjoyment of the assistance imported foreign capital hitherto gave them, they must embark upon domestic capital accumulation. They must go through all the stages through which the evolution of Western industrialism had to pass. They must start with comparatively low wage rates and long hours of work. But, deluded by the doctrines prevailing in present-day Western Europe and North America, their statesmen think that they can proceed in a different way. They encourage labor-union pressure and alleged prolabor legislation. Their interventionist radicalism nips in the bud all attempts to create domestic industries."

It's a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to It | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary

It's a WikiLeaks World, Get Used to It | Jim Harper | Cato Institute: Commentary: "No matter where right or wrong lie in the posting of classified military reports on WikiLeaks.org, one lesson should be clear: This is how it's going to be. Technology will continue to undercut secrecy — not just in the military, but in all large organizations."

"Secrecy should be treated as a weakness, to be avoided whenever possible."

"Secrecy is sometimes necessary, and propaganda is a legitimate dimension of war, but as technology and tools of transparency make their way even to remote battlefields, secrecy and propaganda that are at odds with the evidence on the ground will necessarily be less effective."

Saying No Is Not Nihilism | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary

Saying No Is Not Nihilism | Michael D. Tanner | Cato Institute: Commentary: "It was shortly after Rand Paul won the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, and MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell was mystified. Why would anyone want to be a senator, she wondered, if he opposed most government programs? 'After all,' she mused, 'isn't that what [legislators] do? They legislate.'

And therein, perfectly encapsulated, is the bias of the mainstream media and the elite political classes, a belief that if there is a problem — any problem — then government must do something to fix it."

"Republicans should not try to do things like the Democrats — only a little less expensively or with a little less bureaucracy — but instead should present an agenda of personal and economic liberty. After all, cutting taxes and reducing regulation is a positive alternative to a Democratic jobs program. Repealing the government takeover of the health-care system is a way to give people better health care. Allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes is a positive alternative to the debt and taxes to come from a bankrupt system."

Evidence and Denial | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary

Evidence and Denial | Richard W. Rahn | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Keynesian economics, practiced during the late 1960s and 1970s, became thoroughly discredited with the stagflation of the 1970s — which, in theory, was impossible under the old model — and the subsequent Reagan supply-side boom."

"The economy performed better under Reagan's supply-side policies than President Carter's economic team had forecast it would if their man had been re-elected and continued his high-tax, Keynesian policies. The economy is now performing worse than Mr. Obama's economic team forecast with its Keynesian policies."

Congress Ignores Middle-Class Service Sector | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary

Congress Ignores Middle-Class Service Sector | Daniel Griswold | Cato Institute: Commentary: "American factories can churn out all that stuff with fewer workers because the typical worker is so much more productive than in decades past. Workers today are better educated and armed with cutting-edge equipment, computing power and production methods that enable them to produce far more in an hour of work than their predecessors. Rising productivity is the essence of progress and the foundation of rising living standards.

Manufacturing does represent a smaller share of total employment and output than in decades past, but this is inevitable in an advanced economy. Every rich nation in the world has followed the same path. Manufacturing tends to peak as a share of the economy when per capita income reaches about $15,000. Beyond that, every nation can be said to be deindustrializing."

"Since the early 1990s, two-thirds of the net new jobs created have been in service sectors where the average pay is higher than in manufacturing."

"In 1900, 40 percent of American families earned their living on the farm. Today, fewer than 2 percent of Americans are employed in the agricultural sector. Yet we remain a global leader in agricultural production.

Despite the loss of millions of agricultural jobs in the past century, our fantastically more productive farms continue to produce record output. American farmers today produce twice as much milk as they did in 1900, more than three times as much pork, more than three times as many eggs, nearly four times as much wheat, more than four times as much beef, five times as much corn and eight times as much chicken as a century ago.

Soaring productivity in agriculture and manufacturing has made the goods produced in those sectors more affordable for all Americans. The relative decline of those sectors has freed workers and capital"

Russ Feingold: In the News - Press Releases

Russ Feingold: In the News - Press Releases: "Included in the CSNA are such cost-saving efforts as ending automatic pay raises for members of Congress, cancelling the remaining Wall Street bailout funds, ending unjustified agri-business subsidies, cancelling the purchase of C-17 aircraft the Pentagon doesn’t even want and many others."