Some days it seems that free-market theory has triumphed in every way but in politics. Other days, like today in the New York Times, it seems like the same old fallacies just keep popping up. In particular, today’s edition carries a piece making the case for a higher minimum wage, while horribly caricaturing and misrepresenting the case against raising it, and another article, a bit more fair, that tries to make the case for subsidizing large industry on grounds that particular firms are national champions. The piece on the minimum wages says that those who oppose raising it believe that “hamburger flippers are not worth more than $5.15 an hour”--whereas the real point is that politicians and commentators cannot determine the proper wage and the attempt risks pricing people out of the market. The piece on large industry is an odd reversal of the “infant industry“ argument. Mises.org carries many articles on industrial policy and the minimum wage.
Errors that never die
