People who really believe that trade restrictions prevent domestic unemployment or raise domestic wages – people who really believe that minimum wages raise the incomes of low-skilled workers without causing any loss of employment or worsening of other terms of these workers’ jobs – people who really believe that government-mandated family leave leaves workers better off – are like people who attend magic shows and really believe that the magician causes a rabbit to materialize out of the thin air within the magician’s hat.
“Wow!” exclaims an audience member. “I saw with my own eyes the magician pull a rabbit from a hat that only a moment earlier was empty! And also, the magician assures me that that’s what he did. He wouldn’t lie to me. So it must be true that the magician pulled a rabbit miraculously from his hat – that he bends reality to his will. I’m impressed!!”
These people believe their eyes. And why shouldn’t they? The empirical record, after all, is stuffed with rabbits being pulled from magicians’ hats – hats that audiences saw were empty just moments before live rabbits were pulled from them. What’s not to believe?
Don Boudreaux, “Do You Believe in Magic?”, Café Hayek, 2016-06-22.
February 16, 2018
QotD: It’s not economics, it’s magic!
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