Grant Lee wrote:
> The wonders of the internet. Here is Sowell explaining his shift away from Marxism: http://www.salon.com/books/int/1999/11/10/sowell/index1.html
David Shemano
From that interview:
"So you were a lefty once.
Through the decade of my 20s, I was a Marxist.
What made you turn around?
What began to change my mind was working in the summer of 1960 as an intern in the federal government, studying minimum-wage laws in Puerto Rico. It was painfully clear that as they pushed up minimum wage levels, which they did at that time industry by industry, the employment levels were falling. I was studying the sugar industry. There were two explanations of what was happening. One was the conventional economic explanation: that as you pushed up the minimum-wage level, you were pricing people out of their jobs. The other one was that there were a series of hurricanes that had come through Puerto Rico, destroying sugar cane in the field, and therefore employment was lower. The unions preferred that explanation, and some of the liberals did, too."
So how is incompatible with Marxism that raising wages above market levels can reduce employment? He just decided that the living conditions of sugar workers were less important than the needs of "the economy."
Doug
