Korean Job Discussion Forums

[thepeel]

It's no surprise that progressives at the turn of the twentieth century supported minimum wages and restrictions on working hours and conditions. Isn't this what it means to be a progressive? Indeed, but what is more surprising is why the progressives advocated these laws. A first clue is that many advocated labor legislation "for women and for women only."

Progressives, including Richard Ely, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, the Webbs in England etc., were interested not in protecting women but in protecting men and the race. Their goal was to get women back into the home, where they belonged, instead of abandoning their eugenic duties and competing with men for work.

Unlike today's progressives, the originals understood that minimum wages for women would put women out of work - that was the point and the more unemployment of women the better!
Above from http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/10/the_secret_hist.html

Here is the original article.
http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/Womenswork.pdf

[Sincinnatislink]

Please tell me you're kidding.

[thepeel]

Why? It is interesting, isn't it?

[Sincinnatislink]

Interesting, but you're making quotes out of context.
I'm sure there's people who thought the Supreme Court's separate != equal decision would *beep* over blacks.
This paper simply says that some people believe this. If you believe that short list was responsible for minimum wage, you're fooling yourself.

[thepeel]

Read the paper. I found it very interesting.

The most interesting part, and this is why I posted it, is how the progressive or 'left' ideology has change over the years...

Also, I didn't "make" any quotes out of context. I quoted Alex Tabarrok, a professor of economics at GMU and one of the most well-know econ bloggers who was summarizing a paper by Tim Leanord, an econ prof a Princeton.

[huffdaddy]

[thepeel]

Yeah, maybe. I'd reckon it hasn't done much either way.