>8 hour work week was created by leftists
>child labor laws created by leftists
You're either lying or is very ignorant
Whenever there is an extended holiday, several people say that it was the unions and government interventions that "humanized capitalism" by giving us the 8-hour working day, the five-day work week, the abolition of child labor and everything else.
Unfortunately, these people have reversed cause and effect relationships.
It is not we who humanize capitalism; it was capitalism that humanized us. The wealth produced by capitalism allowed us to meet our humanitarian demands in ways that were not even dreamed of in other times when all human beings lived daily on the threshold of survival.
It was absolutely impossible to work only 8 hours a day, to have a 40-hour workweek, and to give up child labor when the material conditions that allowed this luxury still did not exist. Contrary to what some like to imagine, the workers did not work long hours and the children did not work very early because employers pointed a gun at their heads. Likewise, they did not work so hard just because they liked to work for long, hard and uncomfortable hours.
They, like us, would have preferred to work less, earn more, and enjoy better working conditions. However, where capital - technological tools, high-output machinery, and fast and efficient means of transport - is scarce, productivity is low. With productivity low, wages will inevitably also be low. Therefore, to feed a whole family, it will take several hours of work and many more people working.
Caring for yourself
As Ludwig von Mises never tired of repeating, it was the accumulation of capital that made the work more productive.
Capital is all that increases productivity and, ultimately, the standard of living of a society. Capital are all factors of production - such as tools, machinery, buildings, means of transportation, etc. - that make human labor more efficient and productive.
