Markets, Not Unions, Gave us Leisure

Professor Thomas DiLorenzo reports:

In Human Action Ludwig von Mises wrote that labor unions have always been the primary source of anti-capitalistic propaganda. I was reminded of this recently when I saw a bumper sticker proclaiming one of the bedrock tenets of unionism: "The Union Movement: The People Who Brought You the Weekend."

Well, not exactly. In the U.S. the average work week was 61 hours in 1870, compared to 34 hours today, and this near doubling of leisure time for American workers was caused by capitalism, not unionism. As Mises explained, "In the capitalist society there prevails a tendency toward a steady increase in the per capita quota of capital invested . . . . Consequently, the marginal productivity of labor, wage rates, and the wager earners’ standard of living tend to rise continually."

Worth reading.