Here are just some of the many other ways that my life — that of an ordinary middle-class American of the early 21st century — differs from the lives of ordinary people prior to the Industrial Revolution.
• Assuming I don’t start playing ice hockey, I’ll keep all of my real teeth for 80 or 90 years.
• I’ve never been at any real risk of suffering the loss of a child.
….
• I can listen to many people perform beautiful music as I sit alone in my living room or drive alone along a lonely road. And if I grow tired of listening, say, to the Vienna Philharmonic perform Beethoven symphonies, I can summon immediately John, Paul, George and Ringo to entertain me with songs about a boy wanting to hold a girl’s hand or about strawberry fields.
Even if I were to die today, my life would count as one of the richest and fullest in all humanity.
David Henderson’s Concise Encyclopedia biography of Oliver Williamson is now on-line.
The government has no legitimate business interfering in the prostitution business.
