The Big Myth
A review of

The Big Myth

How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway • Bloomsbury • 2023

Laissez-faire Origins

by David Meyer

Professors Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway trace the origins of the talking points that have come to characterize laissez-faire economics.

In this intriguing historical study, Naomi Oreskes — the Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University —  and Erik M. Conway, the historian for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, trace the US origins of laissez-faire economics.

Capitalism

Capitalism has long privatized profits and socialized costs. In 1900, one in 1,000 workers across all industries died on the job. In one dramatic example, some 6% of all Pennsylvania coal miners died annually. A worker in Scranton, Pennsylvania’s anthracite mines had a greater than 50% chance of dying or suffering a severe injury on the job. But employers suffered no repercussions, and a dead worker’s spouse and children received no compensation.

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