How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sweatshops
Humanism is ugly sometimes
I’m pretty sure that the people running the work house in Oliver Twist are supposed to be the bad guys. When Oliver asks for more gruel, you’re probably not supposed to think: “What effect would that have on operating costs?” Although…seriously, what effect would it have? If you give one kid more gruel, then all the kids have to get it. And soon, “more” becomes the standard portion, plus now the kids know they can push you around, and next thing you know you’re basically running a free restaurant full of fat little orphans stuffing their chubby little faces with gratis gruel. I would have said “no, and you’re fired for illegal union activity.”
I’m 96 percent sure that’s not how you’re supposed to react. But I wonder what tweaks Dickens might make to the story if he had seen these two charts that made the rounds on Twitter last week:
