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 excavator1 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. [↩]