applied economics
The tree service came today to do the brush chipping. It was rather a large pile of deadfall and branches trimmed in a haphazard attempt to meet fire safety standards. It took hours and hours (of good, healthy exercise, naturally) to gather everything together, and I imagined it would take hours and hours (or an hour) to chip it all into smithereens (I will admit that I was perhaps judging by how long it would take me to do it). With an excavator 1 and an industrial chipper, it took less than twenty minutes. Naturally, this was the same day I ready the chapter in Capital, vol. 1, on ‘the production of relative surplus-value’.
- I would have called it, erroneously, a backhoe, but I looked it up and am moderately dubious that I have chosen the correct piece of machinery I would not be comfortable operating.[↩]