Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Diogo Costa
“In recent social media posts, some advocates of ‘degrowth’ have suggested a return to washing clothes by hand as a solution to the perceived ills of modern consumerism. Their proposal ignores the hard-won progress of the past century and risks reversing gains in public health, gender equality, and quality of life. The late Hans Rosling, a renowned public health expert, gave a TED Talk in which he described a childhood memory illustrating the transformative power of household technology: ‘My mother explained the magic with this machine the very, very first day. She said, ‘Now, Hans, we have loaded the laundry, the machine will make the work, and now we can go to the library. Because this is the magic: You load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines.'” (09/30/24)
https://fee.org/articles/washing-machines-are-good-actually/