Loving Sweatshops

by Jacob G. Hornberger
Apr. 24, 2012

“I love sweatshops.”

That was how economics professor Benjamin Powell, our Economic Liberty Lecture Series speaker last night, wrapped up his excellent talk on the benefits of sweatshops. An overflow crowd, mostly composed of George Mason University students, was treated to an eloquent exposition of why and how sweatshops help the poor.

This is one of the things that liberals, who are generally steadfast opponents of sweatshops, just don’t get. Their hearts are in the right place. They’re concerned about the plight of those at the bottom of the economic ladder (although their support of immigration controls belies that concern).

But as I have repeatedly pointed out, when it comes to economics, liberals just have a blind spot. They do not understand that the policies that they advocate to help the poor actually do the opposite — they hurt the poor. One of the best examples of this phenomenon relates to sweatshops.

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