I was watching something and they briefly mentioned “when Upton Sinclair wrote the Jungle, the food industry was virtually free of any government standards”…
luckily, because I am a mises and lewrockwell.com reader…red flags went off everywhere…
are they wrong? was the industry Sinclair talked about a result of government intervention or a the free market?
if you reply with links…please, please, at least add a yes or no…and maybe a sentence…please…
I wohn’t use the threat of force to ensure that you do…I’ll politely ask…
thank you
There is evidence that Upton Sinclair exaggerated the conditions workers faced in the meat packing industry. Here is an article by Lawrence Reed: Of Meath and Myth.
But, I think that these types of defenses don’t convey the real point. Working conditions, at some point in time, were absolutely horrible compared to working conditions today. Workers made much less in terms of real wages. But, the one of the advantages of capitalism is increases in production, which has the side effect of increasing workers’ real wages.
Furthermore, I think it should be noted that the working conditions of meat packers in the first two decades of the 20th century were prob. much better than the conditions other factory workers suffered from during the 19th century. This is no different to the fact that despite ‘bad’ working conditions during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, I am sure that the majority of these factory workers preferred the factories to the back-breaking pre-industrial revolution agricultural work available (otherwise they would not have chosen to work for the factory).
People who critisize industrialization and the workers’ conditions under capitalism don’t put the issue into perspective.
I started a thread about it earlier.