I’ll offer this short piece by Thomas Sowell, and recommend his earlier pieces as well, as welcome rebuttals in the debate over the minimum wage. Along with job protections, such policies vastly exaggerate the ability of government to create wealth via restrictions on private wage and employment decisions. This is as true in less developed regions of the world like South Africa as it is in much more industrialized countires?the U.S. and Germany, along with other Europeans, for example.
Paternalistic arrogance and stupidity are truly international and equalizing qualities, apparently, since we are not alone in misallocating resources toward legislated higher wages, harming overall production, and positively harming target populations with these policies.
