No end to it at New Ruskin College

Lecture Notes:     10-12-12

To:  Mr. Romney

Subject:   Dr. Milton Freidman’s last words

I previously explained the reason for how a Conservative could support minimum wage laws.

I pointed out the things we have done to limit the freedom of action for the poor:  push carts in the downtown are outlawed,  even such occupations as florists, hair dressers, and manicurists all require testing for state and local government’s licensing.  One could also include the closing of the Great Frontier;  the heavily capitalized farming industry displacing small farmers;  the loss of low value added industries    as they moved to overseas;  the loss of manual labor jobs from construction sites to the factory floor.

Perhaps nothing has been so damaging to the laboring classes as the huge bureaucratic project of exclusionary zoning and its single use doctrine.  City planners have imposed anti-market controls based on an esthetic that they have learned at the elite schools.  At these schools they learn to regard people as “congestion;”  tall buildings as a kind of pollution and their residents as “aliens;” and mixed use zoning as old fashion.

What is most notable about exclusionary zoning and building codes is the across the board acceptance by both Right and Left.  The Left can at least claim that they believe in government and its ability to direct the economy.  But even conservatives see nothing wrong with denying private property owners  the full use of their property.   As Dr. Edward Glaeser has said in his important new book The Triumph of the City,   Boston, New York City, and San Francisco all Left controlled for the last 60 years are leaders in zoning out the poor.

Cities have been so successful at zoning out the poor that they now have no place for those low income workers that are needed by the city.  The City of Santa Barbara, for example,, has turned over church and city parking lots for people who are living in their cars.  The homeless are nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, bus drivers etc.  

Given all of this interference with the free market  what is a minimum wage law?  An unacceptable interference with free enterprise?  Of course this attitude is foolish.  But not so foolish that Rush Limbaugh can’t proclaim it.  (I once posted a series of posts on modular construction which is outlawed by most cities with exclusionary building codes.  Rush Limbaugh went on the air and said he would not want a mobile home next to his mansion.  (Note there is a difference between planned communities where the deeds include such covenants that limit what can be built, and even what color it can be painted, and cities with no deed restrictions. ))

All these examples are just a few that could be used to show how we the people, acting through the state, have undermined the position of the laboring classes, i.e. the poor.  The creation of a minimum wage law is just a pitifully small way we can counter balance all this and give aid to the poor.

Milton Friedman was asked what he thought of the logic of this argument.  He replied in an exasperated  way saying ‘There will be no end to it.  The government is involved in so many ways in the market  that there will be no limit to demands to counteract the interference in the market.’

I am reminded of a New Yorker cartoon showing a doctor and a nurse standing at the window of the nursery with the caption of the doctor saying  “Where will it all end Nurse Smith. . . where will it all end.”

PS  And I think Iran’s nuclear program must be destroyed and the regime should be over thrown.