Republicans’ Views of Capitalism

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William McGurn, Audrey Hepburn Teaches Economics; Progressives rushing to help New York nail-salon workers should rent a copy of ‘My Fair Lady.’ Wall Street Journal, May 26, 2015 (columnist)
www.wsj.com/articles/audrey-hepburn-teaches-economics-1432591645
(“Whether by minimum-wage boosts that make them more expensive to hire, licensing requirements that make it more difficult to get a job, or other forms of regulation that will likely mean fewer nail salons and fewer jobs, it’s not hard to imagine displaced nail salon workers in America driven more deeply down into the black market, or into something worse, such as prostitution”)

Note:
(a) "Eliza Doolittle is selling flowers on the street when she realizes someone is taking down every word she says. She confronts him, insisting she’s a 'respectable girl' who is doing nothing illegal. It turns out the man—played by Rex Harrison—isn’t a copper but a professor of phonetics.
(i) Eliza (pronunciation): "a female given name, form of Elizabeth. Based on the Random House Dictionary"
dictionary.reference.com/browse/eliza
(ii) Rex Harrison (Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison; 1908 – 1990; English)
(iii) "a copper"
(A) copper (disambiguation)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_(disambiguation)
("copper, British or Australian slang for a Police officer, hence the North American 'cop'")
(B) list of police-related slang terms
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_police-related_slang_terms
("cop or copper")
(C)
* copper (n; from cop1 + -er1; First Known Use mid-19th century): "informal  a police officer"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/copper
* cop (vt): "catch or arrest (an offender) <he was copped for speeding> * * * Phrases[:] cop a plea [--] North American  engage in plea bargaining"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/cop
(iii) “Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech.”  Wikipedia

(b) “In the discussion that follows, Professor Higgins notes that it is Eliza’s ‘curbstone English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days.’ He boasts that with a few months under his instruction, she could get a job ‘as a lady’s maid or a shop’s assistant.’ ”
(i) curbstone (n): "[AS MODIFIER] informal  Unqualified; amateur <curbstone commentators>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... n_english/curbstone
(ii) lady’s maid (n): "chiefly historical  a maid who attended to the personal needs of her mistress"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/de ... glish/lady%27s-maid

(c) The next morning, Eliza appears at Professor Higgins’s doorstep to hire him to teach her English because she wants to be “a lady in a flow’r shop, ’stead of sellin’ at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.” He accepts. Note the assumptions. Eliza didn’t place her hope in new regulations for street-side flower mongering. For Eliza, upward mobility was about acquiring the skills she needed to get ahead, in this case proper English and the manners that went with it.

(i) My Fair Lady
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady
(section 1 Synopsis)
(ii) Tottenham Court Road
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Court_Road
(In about the 15th century, the area was known variously as Totten, Totham, or Totting Hall;  In the Lerner/Lowe musical My Fair Lady, Tottenham Court Road is mentioned as the place where Eliza Doolittle sells her flowers)

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(d) “In a 2001 column, no less than Paul Krugman noted a similar case of good intentions that had terrible unintended consequences, citing a bill proposed in the 1990s by Sen Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) to outlaw child labor in products made overseas. The threat of the legislation succeeded in the sense that some companies in Bangladesh stopped hiring children. But Mr Krugman noted that follow-up research by Oxfam found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets—and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.“
(i)
(A) no less than somebody/something:
"this very important person or organization <Carroll is the most entertaining talk-show host on TV – no less than "Entertainment Weekly" said so.>  <Almost two dozen representatives flew in for meetings with top officials, including no less than the country's president>"
Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003.
idioms.thefreedictionary.com/no+less+than
(B) The above phrase is distinct, different from

no less: "used to suggest, often ironically, that something is surprising or impressive <Peter cooked dinner—fillet steak and champagne, no less>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/no-less
(ii) Paul Krugman, Reckonings; Hearts And Heads. New York Times, Apr 22, 2001 (columnist)
www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/opini ... arts-and-heads.html
("Third-world countries desperately need their export industries -- they cannot retreat to an imaginary rural Arcadia")
(A) arcadia (n; Arcadia, region of ancient Greece frequently chosen as background for pastoral poetry):
"often capitalized a region or scene of simple pleasure and quiet"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arcadia
(B) Arcadia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia
(It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas [qv])
(iii) Oxfam
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam

(e) “In the end, the only real leverage a worker has over a boss is her ability to tell him where to get off—secure in the knowledge that she has other opportunities.”

tell someone where they can get off/where to get off : “SPOKEN to tell someone rudely that you are angry or annoyed at them”
www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/get-off