This piece from 1992 was lost in the shuffle. Here I discuss the strange vogue of the planned society in the 1930s, when academics freely linked FDR, Mussolini, Keynes, and Stalin–with praise for all!
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/5610/myths-of-the-mixed-economy/
Myths of the Mixed Economy
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I am in agreement with the vast majority of this piece, but one bit left me perplexed. “…[the government] causes unemployment with such welfare measures as the minimum wage and civil rights…” Civil rights are a welfare measure that causes unemployment? Surely a more specific example of governmental abuse was intended.
Can anyone clear that up for me? Or am I missing something so glaringly obvious that it is not worth pointing out?
Minimum wage causes businesses not to open in low income areas, where crime is high and they have to pay more for security and loss, which keeps the low income areas low due to the inability to find work in those areas. The civil rights and free association stuff is not a valid argument, even for republicans.
He probably means anti-discrimination legislation.
“Civil Rights” legislation refers to any laws that violate a person’s or company’s right to free association. An example is the mandate to provide parkings spaces for handicapped persons in commercial sites, even if no handicapped person visits the site. Another is the Affirmative Action laws.
“‘Civil Rights’ legislation refers to any laws that violate a person’s or company’s right to free association.” Uh, no. I will agree that many laws which are called “civil rights” laws are actually violations of individual rights, but certainly not all of them are. Civil rights legislation also encompasses restrictions upon governments to keep it from enacting laws that discriminate for or against certain groups of citizens. If Lew Rockwell meant to decry things such as affirmative action mandates, then he should have been more specific. As that sentence stands, he is giving his opponents an easy weapon to use against him.
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