Bravo to Bob Pollin for his solid rejoinder to Krugman. Bob's point
about slave labor is not merely rhetorical. The legal prohibition
against selling oneself into slavery is arguably the most
market-distorting of all our labor laws. It prevents workers from
capitalizing or colateralizing the value of their ability to work, with
profound implications for credit markets, the financing of education,
income-smoothing, etc. By conventional economic standards labor markets
would operate much more efficiently without this prohibition. Against
this one must weigh the utter immorality of slavery and the political
horror of a society divided between slaves and slave-owners.
Peter Dorman
