Everybody knows that the minimum wage is a good policy, right? Problem is, they’re all wrong. Economists proved long ago that price controls can’t work—they only create shortages and surpluses. The minimum wage is a price floor: if it is set above the market wage it will create a surplus, leaving some workers unable to [...]
11.29.08Government Against the Poor
Whenever I am arguing with someone over the merits and morality of anarchism versus the horrible tragedy of statism, I am almost always confronted with the inevitable question: “What about the poor?” These ignorant statists (I’ve yet to find one aware of economics) are operating under the assumption that the government helps the poor, and [...]
11.21.08Wage Slavery and Wage Injustice
Among the libertarian movement, it is a given that the Marxist idea of wage slavery is a sophism. In a truly free society, individuals would only enter into wage employment because they perceive benefit from it. That is, the employee and the employer only exchange if, ex ante, they expect to gain. Otherwise the exchange [...]