David Shemano: > The argument is about the effect of minimum wage laws, and if you > can't figure out the difference between minimum wage laws and rising wages,
Yes, indeed the argument is about the effect of minimum wage laws and it is based on a fallacy -- actually several fallacies -- including the shape of the theoretical labour supply curve, the relationship between low-wage labour and "investment", the confusion of labour rates and labour costs, the competitiveness of labour markets and probably several others that other Pen-lers could name. No doubt there is SOME level of minimum wage that may cause a decline in employment but even then it's possible that the higher wage more than compensates for the loss of employment both collectively and individually. For example, someone would possibly be better off working 9 months of the year at $10 an hour than working 12 months at $7 an hour. They might even be better off with a lower total income earned during a shorter time period. The minimum wage/unemployment argument is a defiant throwback to archaic wages-fund doctrine. I would have every sympathy with Sowell's observation of the bureaucratic response to his suggestion about empirical validation provided he also noticed that the incentives for conservative economists are equally incompatible with the economic laws they purport to uphold and investigate. These folks are neither entrepreneurs nor scientists. They're an ecclesiatical order entrusted with an infallible, ineffable doctrine. Is it an accident that their conclusions invariably exalt the rationality of privilege? Or does that just happen to be true? It may have been "painfully clear" to Sowell that "as they pushed up minimum wage levels... employment levels were falling," but such painful clarity doesn't constitute empirical validation. Nor, despite the shocked looks on the bureaucrats' faces, would his data on sugar cane have definitively answered the question. Considering the theoretical slimness of Sowell's moment of truth, his "painful clarity" takes on a fascinating rhetorical function. Does it ground his reasoning in a moment of *passion* arising out of some kind of vicarious suffering in identication with the poor? Or is it his annoyance at the obtuseness of the bureaucrats who are unable to see what he so clearly (he thinks) sees? Or is there perhaps some kind of fusion there where Sowell's suffering the bureaucratic fools in itself redeems the suffering of the poor, regardless of any policy consequences? I only pray that if I ever see the light, it not be the glow of such thread-bare doctrinal kaka. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
