12/21/06
Is $5.15 enough? The question itself is fundamentally wrong.
re "Is $5.15 enough? Plan would raise Va. minimum wage" (Virginian-Pilot 12/20/06)
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=116333&ran=115592
Two Democratic politicians quoted in your article wondering “Is $5.15 enough?” demonstrate a remarkable and dangerous lack of understanding of economics and the proper role of government. State Senator Mary Margaret Whipple says that “sharing the wealth” is an “issue of simple fairness.” But how is that any different from a mugger who wants to “share the wealth” because his victim has less than he does?
When a politician believes she has the right to decide how to take lawfully- and hard-earned money from citizens to redistribute it to others (no matter how “worthy” they might be”), where does it end? How can an elected official miss the lessons of the Soviet Union, where even they learned that the government can not act like a thief in order to create a civil society.
State Representative Brian Moran makes another economically ignorant argument. He says that the minimum wage will put more money in workers’ pockets. But where does he think that money comes from? The only way to put more money in one pocket is to take it from another, just as a petty thief would do. Every extra dollar that a worker has to spend is a dollar that the employer doesn’t have either to spend or to create a job for another worker.
Economic idiocy lives in Virginia’s state government. We can only hope that Virginians realize before it is too late that socialist policies always produce bad outcomes.
1 comment
on 12/29/06 at 13:01
The fact that 100% central planning of the economy failed does not mean that a %100 free market will work (I'm assuming that you support a %100 free market since you claim that redistribution of wealth is never justified)
"The only way to put more money in one pocket is to take it from another, just as a petty thief would do. Every extra dollar that a worker has to spend is a dollar that the employer doesn’t have either to spend or to create a job for another worker."
So? You're asking me to sympathise with millionaires over dirt poor workers. If we can manipulate the economy to benefit the majority of people without reducing economic growth too much, then why not? You can't just compare this to petty theft in that the government is not just taking for itself but to provide a little extra to people who already struggle to pay their bills. That's the problem I have with Libertarian moral values, in that they are solely based on an opposition to coercion, without realising that this principle arose from the moral foundation of compassion. What I am trying to say is that sometimes the end result of coercion can justify it.
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