Darwin argues in a previous post:

The problem is that if you’re allowed to pay people 1/2 of a living wage for a 40 hour work week, that’s what employers will pay, and poor people will work 2 jobs for 80 hours a week because it’s better than starving to death. Certainly there will be more jobs, but enough of them will be performed by the same person that unemployment won’t go down any (may go up).

I really dislike the use of the term ‘you’re allowed’. It implies that the only force keeping employers from arbitrarily determining the value of labor is state regulation. It belies a woefully ignorant understanding of economics.

By eliminating minimum wage employers will not have the freedom to charge what they please for labor. Employers are still bound to the value of labor which is determined by the market. Employers that attempt to pay less than that will have difficulties finding employees while employers that charge more that the value of labor will have an abundance of applicants. Over time employers that refuse to pay the minimum value of labor will lose out to employers that will pay the value of labor.

There is irony here. You seem to be implying that value of labor is arbitrarily determined when left up to the markets. Yet I would argue that in fact the arbitrary determination of value in labor only occurs when politicians get involved. In a free markets system there is no coercion, therefore labor value reflects the actual value of the labor. However, when you apply the state’s coercive force to implement a minimum wage you distort the value of labor. But on what grounds do you justify distorting the value of labor?

At this point you would justify that distortion on the grounds that poor people should be able to make a ‘living wage’. Here though is the problem. How do you define living wage? Most likely I would object to your definition. That is simply to say that necessarily the definition of ‘living wage’ must be arbitrary, therefore the distortion you elected politicians to implement must also be arbitrary.

In matters of determining the value of labor, it’s not the employer with the freedom to arbitrarily determine the value of labor, it’s the politician. As always this is because the politician can invoke the state’s monopoly of coercion to distort the value of the labor as he sees fit.

I will never understand why you trust the state more than the free market. The state has coercion while the market does not. And yet, you foolishly trust the state over the free market.

This editorial piece over at the Seattle PI details why bananas will be a thing of the past in short order. The author writes:

Bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.

As if this statement was not enough to roll your eyes the next paragraph really illicit contempt for this primitive thinking journalist.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon — in five, 10 or 30 years — the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world — and where they are leading us.

Oh god! The asinine statement that bananas will be lost forever is bested by the claim that this is because of the evil scary corporations. One can’t help but think that the scary thing in this story is not the corporation but that an esteemed journalist with a college degree somehow managed to retain such silly childish understanding of corporations.

If you wish to measure you partisan left ignorance gauge how compelling you find his reasoning. The more reasonable you find it the more ignorant you are.

I have posted on political ideology being correlated with happiness. A story in the economist has this to say.

In 2004 Americans who called themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” were nearly twice as likely to tell pollsters they were “very happy” as those who considered themselves “liberal” or “very liberal” (44% versus 25%). One might think this was because liberals were made wretched by George Bush. But the data show that American conservatives have been consistently happier than liberals for at least 35 years.

Perhaps more interesting though is the explanation one ‘expert’ gives:

Why should this be so? Mr Brooks proposes that whatever their repective merits, the conservative world view is more conducive to happiness than the liberal one (in the American sense of both words). American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and therefore happier. American liberals, at their most pessimistic, stress the injustice of the economic system, the crushing impersonal forces that keep the little guy down and what David Mamet, a playwright, recently summed up as the belief that “everything is always wrong”. Emphasising victimhood was noble during the 1950s and 1960s, says Mr Brooks. By overturning Jim Crow laws, liberals gave the victims of foul injustice greater control over their lives. But in as much as the American left is now a coalition of groups that define themselves as the victims of social and economic forces, and in as much as its leaders encourage people to feel helpless and aggrieved, he thinks they make America a glummer place.

I actually think there is a great deal of merit to this. It seems to me that regardless of humans actually being determined, we have been biologically wired to operate optimally in a free will frame of mind. Those that have experiences that push towards determinism can generate resentment and a general unhappiness. I speak from personal experience in this regard. Having been continually rejected from prestigious graduate programs for a score on a standardized test that I can’t control has made me angry, bitter and unhappy. A large reason for my anger is my perception that I can’t control whether I get into these prestigious programs.

When you consider how other governments and economic systems work it becomes more clear just how important it is to design systems that sync with our biological need to perceive choice. Communism failed because it takes to much perception of volition from it’s people. Socialism’s failures most likely can be traced back to the same problem. Monarchies, despots, oligarchies, they all exceed a threshold in causing it’s people to perceive determinism in the outcome of their actions. Free markets and democracies on the other hand, to the extent that a state entity can facilitate the perception of volition, do the best job of doing so. Democracies give citizen a choice in what kind of laws should be applied to themselves while free markets gives consumers the maximal choice in determining what material things to populate their world with. Such choices bring about perception in volition and in turn allow our biology to run optimally.

I actually think the assertion that the biology of man is performs optimally in a free market democracy is a testable hypothesis. That is to say, one can probably show higher incidents of biological inefficiency in people living in a non-democracy. Along these lines, one could then make an argument that policy which reduces choice and increases determinism leads to institutional operation comes out of sync with our biological makeup. Passing universal health care at the federal level would push the citizenry’s perception of health care outcomes as being even more deterministic. Over time this would breed resentment and unhappiness as people biology operates in efficiently in a overly deterministic system.

Better to minimize federal policy. By its very nature it must violate human biology.

It was recently reported that

Apple has announced that music sales from its iTunes Music Store now eclipse CD sales from Wal-Mart as the impact of the music download era hits home.

The latest data released by the NPD Group in February indicates that iTunes has over 50 million customers, cumulative recorded sales exceeding 4 billion, and a music library over the 6 million song mark.

Its almost like Wal-Mart does not have the coercive power to force people to buy their music from them. Odd.

When will they care about poor people.

As you have probably seen on TV and elsewhere, in September 2006, Wal-Mart launched its $4 prescription program. Now, 18 months later, it reports that it has saved consumers over $1 billion (yes, billion) as a result of that program. That’s $1 billion that poorer consumers have to spend elsewhere on the things they need (or that is reducing insurance costs and premiums), not to mention they can now buy prescriptions they might not have been able to afford before or not have to cut pills in half to save money. Moreover, that program prompted Wal-Mart’s competition to create similar programs, the benefits of which can be placed on top of that $1 billion. For some strange reason, the major media didn’t cover this story when Wal-Mart’s press release went out last Friday.

It’s because of their monopoly that they can so callously ignore the pain and suffering they cause the poor by saving them money. Thank god there are affluent liberals that would never stoop to shopping at Walmart eager to take up the cause of regulating increased costs on all the goods as means to helping the poor by making things less affordable.

Apparently the writer Daniel Hannan has not read any of Dan’s response to my condemnations of communism.

Ponder the stories of two African states. Kenya banned the killing of elephants in 1979, effectively nationalising its herd. At around the same time, Rhodesia (as it still was) made elephants the property of those whose land they were on. The result? Thirty years on, Kenyan elephants have been all but wiped out, while Zimbabwe’s are as numerous as ever.

Had Hannan read those comments, he would know that the elephants death had nothing to do with economic policy but some magical variable that unluckily occurred in Kenya. It was luck in Rhodeisa, and not ownership of property, that kept the elephants alive. When will these people realize that socialistic economic policy does not kill, its unlucky events that occur while that policy is instantiated that kills. You always have to consider magical variable when comparing the death rates of differing economic systems. Everybody knows that.

Whats interesting though is that in Kenya, its was decided that elephants were much to important to be left up to free markets. Since elephants were such a valuable resource it was decided that it would be wiser to let the government control that resource. Just like we see, in countless examples before, giving the one entity that has monopoly on coercion total control over some resource squanders the resource. If you seriously think that a resource is to valuable to be squandered, the last thing you should do is give government sole control over that resource. This reminds me of public education. Since education is to important, we let the government control it and as a consequence when we compare kitchen appliance to education we find that only microwaves improve.

Elephants and education are to important to let the markets do their work. Better to have the government squander and ruin those resources then let the powerful innovative force of competition do its work on these ‘valuable’ things. When will people see that government is not the solution to the problem?

Or as a fellow coworker likes to say: “I’m from the government, I’m here to help”.

Over at personal responsibility Darwin states:

For normal employees, it’s important to allow employees to unionize because consumers don’t have much control over how employees are treated; therefore unions are useful to make sure that the balance between employee rights/pay and corporate profit/efficiency is maintained.

Seriously, are you fucking high? Do you smoke crack? Companies are constantly pressured by consumers to change. If they don’t adjust to consumer demands they will very quickly find themselves out of business. Companies are not like the government, they cant force people to do their will, they actually have to appeal to the people.

When thinking about this kind of thing, one must be wise enough to understand that a successful company already has a base of consumers willing to support the actions of that company. Those that take objection to the company are most likely in the minority. Or at the very least, are unpersuasive in convincing other consumers to stop supporting the company.

Given that the objectionable actions of the company have not already put them out of business, and the groups of people that object have been unpersuasive with those that do support the company, it seems reasonable to assume those against the company do not have a majority. This is precisely why they seek state regulation. To get around the problem of not having consumer support, which is a much better determinant of the people’s will then a democratic vote.

In choosing the state as the means to regulate a company, the activist is very clearly attempting to force their values down the throats of consumers. Environmentalists demand increasing taxes on gas guzzling SUVs as a way to reduce how many are produced and in turn ‘help’ the environment. The fact that these companies sell them year after year implies that there is a consumer base that supports this kind of vehicle. This means two things. First that a large groups of people support SUV by way of purchasing them, and secondly the environmentalist arguments for not purchasing SUVs are unpersuasive. Thus, the environmentalist decides to shove their environmental values down the throats of the SUV consumers via the state. This is the kind of attitude that liberals have, and it is what I most strongly object to.

Because capitalism does not use coercion, it is the best measure of the people’s will. Activist that don’t like the people’s will seek the coercive force of the state to format people’s will to be more consistent with their own values. In the case of Darwin, he supports jailing people that believe in the value of self protection by firearm.

Using Experts to Justify Shoving Your Values Down Someone Else’s Throat

No doubt you will want to counter by stating that the SUV is bad for the environment. Let me entertain this argument and in the process bring Dan into the discussion. Since supporters of SUV are likely to be unconvinced by environmentalist’s arguments that the vehicles does harm to the environment, the environmentalist will bring in the ‘expert’. Since he is an expert, he knows the ‘truth’ about SUV causing harm to the environment. Since he is ‘knowledgeable’ and has done ‘science’ its clear that he should be the arbiter of truth regarding SUV harm. Remarkably his conclusion’s support the environmentalist’s claims.

But let’s say that with use of the expert, the environmentalist wins the day and state legislation is passed increasing the tax on SUVs. This is an interesting precedent. Its okay to call on the state to shove your values down the throats of others so long as you have an expert that says the benefits are ‘true’.

Well then knowing that, let me introduce you to a website Diatribe came across documenting over 200 studies showing the ‘truth’ about children being raised in single parent home. The experts show that it’s ‘harmful’ to the child, and in turn society in general, to grow up with a single parent. A savvy Christian that believes that God’s wish is for children to be raised in a two parent home would be wise to employ these experts in showing this effect to get legislation passed forcing single parents to give up their children.

Something tells me Darwin would oppose the state forcing this Christian value down the throats of single parents. But on what grounds? The experts have determined the ‘truth’. Single parent households are harmful to children. When ‘experts’ use ‘science’ to determine ‘truth’ there is no more debate. Those that oppose the legislation must relent because the ‘truth’ has been settled.

There is no doubt there would be a significant drop off in gun violence if the state forbid raising children in a one parent home. Yet I doubt Darwin would see this as a fair trade, however he would gladly take away your constitutional right to firearms just to reduce gun violence.

Experts are useful, just not when they are used to justify using the state coercive force to shove one group’s value down another groups throat. In the context of this blog, this is almost always the way I’m attacking experts. When it comes to minority groups trying to force their will on others it best to ignore their experts. Even when the experts are the scientific consensus on global warming.

On Failing to Convince the Consumer

Highly vocal critics of some corporations always seem to forget that in many cases there is a much larger silent consumer base that does not object to the company. Those on the left seem painfully unaware of this large ‘voting block’ which enjoys a great deal of control over the corporations that need their money to survive. Companies that have a tin ear towards their consumers will very quickly find themselves out of business. Companies that have a tin ear towards activist will not find themselves out of businesses. It’s this indifference towards the activist that leads to dumbass statements like this:

consumers don’t have much control over how employees are treated

Its not that the consumer doesn’t have control, its just that they don’t care about the activist hang up towards this company and continue to support it, and its practices towards labor. Furthermore, consumers are right to be dubious of experts telling them their actions are ‘harmful’ and should object on principle to using experts to justify value coercion. Believe me, when the consumer base that supports a company decides against the company, that company will make changes or be filing for bankruptcy in short order.

In the end, its not that the activist lacks control over the company, it’s that the activist lacks control over the consumers that support that company. Failing to convince the consumer, the activist’s next move is to bring in the state to force the consumers to follow the values of the activist. I object to this both from the liberal and the conservative side. The only question in my mind is why you draw exceptions for liberals but join me in resisting conservative attempts at value coercion.

Thanks to Dan’s astute observations regarding communism, I now know that America has been very lucky avoiding any of those magic variables that cause massive civilian death. For example, China’s policy in the 1950’s called the Great Leap Forward had absolutely nothing to do with 40 million people that starved to death.
Rather, China was unlucky to have some magic variable that had nothing to do with their Communistic policies that cause all the death. America truly is lucky going 200 plus years without one of these random magical variables befallen us and kill millions of our people.

Unfortunately the same can not be said about Zimbawe. Apparently Zimbawe was well on its way to affluence.

In the years following independence, Zimbabwe had the second largest economy south of the Sahara and the third highest per capita gross domestic product. In the first two years after independence, the economy grew by 24 per cent. This was followed by 5 per cent annualised growth in the next 15 years. The highest inflation rate was 12 per cent.

But then, some random variable befallen this fine nation, a variable that, according to Dan, is completely independent of government or economic policy. Look at the carnage this magical variable has wrought on Zimbabwe.

Since then, and especially since 2000, Zimbabwe has gone from being a promising country, full of committed, highly literate and skilled people, to a basket case with a population broken by years of neglect and numerous assaults on their ever-dwindling liberties.

Today, 70 per cent of the country’s commercial agriculture has been destroyed by government mismanagement. Only 10 per cent of the winter food crop was planted due to lack of fuel and fertilisers. More than four million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid, 45 per cent of the population is malnourished and unemployment is over 85 per cent. One in four of the population has HIV-AIDS and 350 children in Zimbabwe are orphaned every day due to the disease.

Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy in the world. Women can expect to live to 34.

Inflation is running as high as 150,000 per cent. The price of a carton of milk taken from a supermarket shelf can be higher by the time it reaches the checkout.

It should come as no surprise that Zimbabwe has the world’s second highest per capita diaspora, following only Palestine.

I used to think that such outcomes were largely the result of government oppression and poor economic policy. Dan has certainly disabused me of such silly notions and viewing Zimbabwe’s current situation I am ever more grateful, not of democracy, or free markets, but that America has not had this magic variable randomly visit us. Hopefully, god willing their will never be a time when the magic variable comes and ruins millions of American’s lives.

Since these magic variables are beyond our control I can only pray that God will banish this magic variable from Zimbabwe and the people can rebuild and achieve the affluence the US has been lucky to attain.

Lets take a look at what you get when you put together the desire to redistribute wealth equitably, increase government control over markets, and use experts to inform bureaucrats how best to manage resources and people.

The introduction, by editor Stéphane Courtois, states that that “…Communist regimes…turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”. Using unofficial estimates he cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the “excess deaths” (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

* 20 million in the Soviet Union
* 65 million in the People’s Republic of China
* 1 million in Vietnam
* 2 million in North Korea
* 2 million in Cambodia
* 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
* 150,000 in Latin America
* 1.7 million in Africa
* 1.5 million in Afghanistan
* 10,000 deaths “resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power.”(p. 4)

It explicitly states that Communist regimes are responsible for a greater number of deaths than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism. The statistics of victims includes executions, intentional destruction of population by starvation, and deaths resulting from deportations, physical confinement, or through forced labor. It does not include “excess deaths” due to higher mortality or lower birth rates than expected of the population.

This comes from The Black Book of Communism.

Capitalism is all about greed and the ignoble virtue of getting and keeping whats your’s.

Communism is about equity and the noble virtue of sharing whats your’s with all.

If you ask me I would live in the ignoble world of greed than the noble word of sharing. I base this primarily off the likelihood that I would be dead in a world of good intentions.

This interactive site uses poverty statistics to show how billions of people have been pulled out of poverty. What interesting to note is that most of the poor people came from Aisan countries, which coincided with free markets policies. Unsurprising once again that without the good intentions of bureaucrats trying to solve poverty free markets reduce it without even trying.

Capitalism. Is there anything it can’t do?