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So what should history textbooks say about these matters? This:
Working conditions during the early Industrial Revolution were bad by
modern standards, but a major improvement by the standards of the time.
Factory work looked good to people raised on backbreaking farm labor -
and it looked great to the many immigrants who flocked to the rising
centers of industry from all over the world. This alliance of
entrepreneurs, inventors, and workers peacefully kickstarted the modern
world that we enjoy today.
And what of the "workers'
movement"? A halfway decent textbook would emphasize that it wasn't
quantitatively important. Few workers belonged, and they didn't get
much for their efforts. Indeed, "workers' movement" is a misnomer;
labor unions didn't speak for most workers, and were often dominated by
leftist intellectuals. A fully decent textbook would discuss the many
possible negative side effects of labor market regulation and unionization - so students realize that the critics of economic populism were neither knaves nor fools.
The
Big Picture: Industrialization was the greatest event in human
history. Critics then and now were foolishly looking a gift horse in
the mouth. Until every student knows these truths by heart, history
teachers have not done their job.
Source: Brian Caplin,"The Economic Illiteracy of High School History," econlog.com, November 20, 2013
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