Repealing the law of supply and demand

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 30 Sep 2001 13:13:42 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED SEPT. 4, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Repealing the law of supply and demand

The U.S. Constitution guarantees us (Article I, Section 10) that "No

State shall... pass any ... Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts. ..."

Nonetheless, the central planners -- blind to the spread of new poverty and degradation following the dismal collapse of their similar efforts around the world these past 80 years -- continue to insist they can repeal the laws of supply and demand, along with that right to private contract

which allows a prospective worker and a prospective employer to settle between themselves on the rate they consider appropriate for a given job of work.

Latest in the lineup to propose such an absurd scheme of central government planning is the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, which whines in a report released this week that precisely 57.3 percent of Nevada jobs fail to pay a "living wage" -- whatever that is -- and that the state should thus blackmail any business which "benefits from public money through tax breaks, grants, loans or government contracts" into paying some new state mandated minimum hourly rate, as yet unspecified but presumably higher than the current $5.15 federal minimum wage.

Why? Because Nevadans "can work two full-time, minimum wage jobs and still not make ends meet for your families," explained Susan Chandler, a

consultant hired by the collectivists to generate this new study.

How shall we count the ways in which this bizarre proposal is likely to backfire?

First, Ms. Chandler admits 28 percent of minimum wage earners are kids, most of whom live at home with their parents and are just getting their feet wet in the job market. A whopping 60 percent of minimum wage-earners, meantime, contribute only a second income for their households -- moms or granddads working part-time by choice.

Do we really want to ban moms with kids at home from seeking part-time

work? Did anyone forbid these younger workers from getting a higher education if they wanted to earn more? Do we really want to send the message that you needn't bother -- folks like "PLAN" will get you a big raise even if you don't get educated and learn useful skills?

What would happen if Burger King managers were actually told they now had to pay the average hamburger flipper $30 an hour, instead of $5 or $6? Given that there's some limit to what folks will pay for burgers and fries, they'd either put in more burger-flipping robots (relegating much of the current staff to the government dole) or close completely. Right?

"But that's absurd," the central planners will scoff. "We'd never mandate $30 an hour. ... Maybe eight or 10."

Sure they will, and without a word of apology. Back when the first minimum wage was instituted at less than a dollar, PLAN's predecessors would doubtless have dismissed as absurd the suggestion that they'd ever mandate a "minimum wage" of a fin, a fiver, half a sawbuck.

What happened? Just ask yourself what today's $5 bill is really worth. In 1930, five dollars would buy you a quarter of an ounce of gold. Today, it buys only one-fiftieth of an ounce of gold -- inflation having reduced the value of the fiat paper dollar by a factor of more than 12.

What causes such inflation? Things like government-mandated "minimum wages." An hour of entry-level diaper-changing or burger-flipping will never be worth more than a fiftieth of an ounce of gold. Force employers to hand over more fiat "dollar bills" for a given hour of work, and you merely inflate away the value of each such paper coupon.

Who suffers? Railroad widows on fixed pensions, to start with.

All such mandated wage hikes really do is outlaw lower-paying jobs. Many a loading dock manager might be willing to take a chance on some illiterate now cadging quarters on the street corner at $3 an hour ... but not at $5. Each such increment raises the bottom rung of the employment ladder out of reach for a few thousand more desperate souls.

Meantime, all PLAN's whining about impoverishment depends on the presumption these workers haven't already been pressed by existing redistribution schemes into earning extra, undeclared income on the side -- under-reporting their tips, perhaps?

Cities like Missoula, Mont. have already instituted such "living wage"

proposals on a local level. To keep from driving local mom-and-pop businesses bankrupt, they typically exempt businesses with "four employees or less." Guess what happens when a small local business starts to succeed and considers hiring a fifth or sixth employee? Either they reluctantly sell out to a bigger competitor (scratch another family enterprise -- lifeblood of our prosperity); the jobs in question are never created; or

the new workers are paid "under the table," turning another set of workers and employers into reluctant outlaws, outside the reach of all the wonderful "mandated workplace benefits" so cheerfully extorted by do-gooders like PLAN.

Give PLAN credit for getting one thing right, at least: Though "tax breaks" are not a government subsidy (subsidies involve handing someone taxpayer cash, not letting them keep a little more of what they earn), it is indeed true, as PLAN president Mark Nichols argues, that "We should not be subsidizing businesses that pay their workers a poverty wage."

The answer is to let businesses pay any wage to which a worker will voluntarily agree ... while eliminating all tax subsidies to American businesses, putting our free market enterprises blissfully outside the reach of meddlers like the Progressive Leadership Alliance, once and for all.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. To receive his longer, better stuff, subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591 or on the website http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin 1759

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

Repealing the law of supply and demand