Sean McElwee has been excerpts from a recent book about the Koch Brothers. What happens when cunning, obscenely rich fuckwits get it into their heads to promote their ideas by sinking money into miseducation programs?
They fill students heads with bad history, grossly oversimplified economics, and the worship of destructive policies. Well, destructive to the country, but great for billionaires.
Lesson plans and class materials obtained by The Huffington Post make the course’s message clear: The minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth. Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper. Public assistance harms the poor. Government, in short, is the enemy of liberty.
The book is Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
This reminds me: I wonder how long southerners were taught that slavery wasn’t all that bad by rich people who like slavery/ hate blacks? Since the end of the war or is it a relatively recent thing?
I’m not going to try to talk you out of reading it, PZ. That way I won’t have to. Muahahaha!
I’m depressed enough already, thank.
Welcome to the future of education, where exclusive brainwashing rights go to the highest bidder. And since the highest bidder will always be the elites who owe their position to the corrupt status quo, or more likely the corporations they own, then expect much more in the way of revisionist history, ‘inventive’ economics, and bigoted lies in the class room. Ownership of the minds of the next generation is set to be just another commodity traded on the stock market. Isn’t unfettered, laissez-faire capitalism wonderful?
Just remember – ignorance is strength, and we’ve always been at war with Eastasia. If we don’t act to stop this indoctrination soon, we might as well start getting into practice in advance of someone like Trump setting up their very own Ministry of Truth…
More fuckwittery to add to your depression: the Koch brothers harassed the author of that book. They tried to discredit her.
KOCH BROTHERS ACCUSED OF HIRING FORMER NYPD CHIEF TO DIG UP DIRT ON JOURNALIST
using their fortune to exert an outsize influence over American politics in a lengthy magazine expose titled “Covert Operations,” she found out that the brothers had assembled a team of operatives and private investigators to discredit her.
Isn’t that sort of like “bombing the village in order to save it”?
I.e.: “we proved her point in attempting to discredit her on exactly that point.”
I recently read a blog on The Daily Kos about this very book, “Charles Koch’s decades-long plot to overthrow the government”.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/19/1471781/-Charles-Koch-s-decades-long-plot-to-overthrow-the-government?detail=email
I found the article to be very enlightening and very frightening at the same time.
I don’t think that I would dissuade you from reading the book, PZ. Perhaps many more people should be reading it, too.
Knowledge is the only way that we can fight back against such plots. My fear is that it may be too late.
Hey Canada – Would you consider accepting a middle-aged couple – one a computer expert and the other a Latin teacher?
Hey magistramarla. Six months ago I’d have said “you might as well stay put, because our PM has a similar agenda in dumbing down the populace”. We had an election in the fall, and it was one of the most joyous days in the last decade when that miserable, cold, alien went down to defeat.
Maybe now that we have a new government up here, and we are accepting a lot of refugees, you and your partner might be able to get in a little more easily. Especially if the Donald becomes POTUS. If that happens we might be flooded with refugees. We have a lot of problems that need fixing up here, but we are at least off of the death spiral now. I think. At least there is a feeling of hope alive in the land.
So far I don’t think that rich conservatives have been able to penetrate the school system to the extent that they are systematically promoting bullshit.
I second DonDueed. Please read it and comment on it so that I do not have to. I have too much studying to do as it is.
Thanks for offering to read it!
one of the best ways to get rid of a vermin infestation is a through cleaning which requires light and some work there is no easy safe none toxic way to accomplish it.
I just do not have the time or energy to read all of the things that expose those who are out to assault our hard won democratic rights. Please read it and post here what you have discovered as you have been doing so far.
I look forward to the a Frontline exposé on their efforts in education.
So much from them indicates how anti-democratic they really are.
uncle frogy
I’m two-thirds through the audio book. It’s as depressing as you imagine, but worth reading to learn about their many sneaky tactics. Also, there are many more players besides the Kochs. As a native of West Michigan I was happy to see the DeVos family of Amway fame get their due.
These people’s disregard for the public and the environment is jaw-dropping. Their fervor transcends greed and seems rooted in a passionate disdain for anything or anyone who isn’t selfish.
This is nothing more than extortion. And don’t get me started on those commercials they run.
Great example of something I was asking about in another thread – how the hell does Atheism or Skepticism have anything definitive to say on any of these topics? For example: “the minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth.” That’s a claim, and there’s a fair bit of economic evidence behind it (evidence many on the unskeptical far left don’t want to hear, or prefer to minimize).
For that matter, any of the other things highlighted in that excerpt are – at the very least – debatable public policy points. Did government policies play a role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis? Of course. The debatable point is which policies, and to what extent did those policies have a role to play. Using skepticism and reason, one can (and many do) argue both sides.
Here’s another: “Low taxes and less regulation allow people to prosper.” “Lower” compared to what, and “less” compared to what, are left unsaid, but each of those propositions are rational. Public policy involves trade-offs, and many of the regulations we prefer do take decisions out of the hands of businesses and individuals. Let’s not pretend that there are no downsides to our preferred policies.
In another thread someone called me a “contrarian”, and I initially bristled at that characterization because I didn’t see it that way. If you’re going to ask me to blindly follow every progressive public policy proposal – and in the process blindly hate those who disagree with us – just to be part of a movement then I am most defiantly going to say no. In fact, this runs contrary to what I was always taught is the very nature of skepticism. I might disagree with Penn Jillette about a whole host of things but I understand the value judgments he makes and the reasoning he uses to reach his conclusions.
In the last few weeks I’ve seen more than a little bit of political madness on this blog, and not the kind Lynna talks about. I’ve seen fabricated quotes to put our opponents in a bad light, lies about political positions, mischaracterizations, and a lot of unjustified snark. If the Kochs were paying for programs that teach creationism or anti-vax pseudoscience I could understand the contempt. But this? This is borderline delusional.
Penny L, a couple of points:
1) Movement atheism stands in contrast with personal atheism; and
2) An example of anti-science activism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers#Climate_change
And once again, Penny L, you shoots your own foot without apparently realizing it.
Thusly:
1) a question…
2) and answer
If it is possible to debate evidence for/against some position, then skepticism has something definitive to say about it, you idiot. Even if it says “the evidence is at this oment unclear, we need more evidence”.
And since I have some experience with contrarians, I want to add:
The use of word “definitive” is no doubt for it to alow to argue that the possibilty of both sides arguing for/against something means the answer is not definitive etc. This is of course just a disingenuous rhetorical tactic, because atheism and skepticism have no definitive (in dictionary sense of the word) answer on anything. Both are positions about how to weigh preponderance of evidence to reach usable conclusions and about accepting null hypothesies as the baseline in the absence of evidence. The word “definitive” is therefore just a weasel word used as a disingenuous rhetorical tactics to allow to wriggle and move goalposts like you always do.
As for preponderance of evidence on f.e. the economical effect of minimal wages, a lot of ink was spilled over it in last years. I am therefore happy to say that there is finaly an actual experiment running in Germany. Preliminary results after one year indicate that conservatives are full of shit, because no armageddon of joblessness ensued. -click-
It will of course take some time before the conclusion can be taken as definitive (as in established enough to warrant them as true for any practical situation) but it is clear they will never be “definitive” (as in absolutely sure) enough for contrarian unable to spot a contradiction in five paragraphs they themselves just wrote while calling other people delusional.
Penny L
You might nit have noticed, but people are a lot more than just one thing. Secondly: Skeptics as “people who value truth and evidence” should be very concerned if schoolbook content goes to the highest bidder, regardless of the scientific merit.
For example: “the minimum wage hurts workers and slows economic growth.” That’s a claim, and there’s a fair bit of economic evidence behind it (evidence many on the unskeptical far left don’t want to hear, or prefer to minimize)
Which is why you, unlike Charly, included a link to support your claim, right?.
Penny L Bloviating idjit:
Actually, the evidence not linked to Koch paid “think tanks” (no thinking occurring) says increasing the minimum wage increases the economy, as the working poor spends their money, so more money flows through the economy. DUH. You are purposely ignorant and therefore stupid.
You are borderline delusional, not us. Who the fuck are you to tell us what we should believe. This is a liberal blog. It says so on the masthead. Saying our politics shouldn’t be liberal is pure unadulterated bullshit. Being skepical and doing freethought (empirical evidence) leads us to being liberal. Nobody gives a shit about your drivel. Why are still trolling us?
Sure, if you can take (a) being paid in Canadian dollars and (b) accepting the horrendous evil that is universal, single-payer health care. Not sure which is scarier (from an USian perspective).
Oh, and (c) if you can make it across before President Trump builds The Wall.
I’m reading it. But then, all of my reading is depressing.
It started in earnest a few decades after the war (Lost Cause Movement) and continues today:
Texas Textbooks in 2015
Besides, of course the governments played a role in the financial crisis: They deregulated the finance sector, so their fault is exactly what the Kochs are also claiming is bad: regulation.
Penny L
So, where is this evidence?
Of course they are debatable, the issue here is that the textbooks prop up one side of the debate.
Of course they did. Hint, it was not “too much regulation”.
You can argue both sides, but that doesn’t mean both sides are equally correct.
You literally made a statement which you admit is too vague, and then in the same sentence add that this statement is rational. I don’t think rational means what you think it means.
Of course each policy has its up and downsides. I don’t think there is a single person with a modicum of intellect who rejects that premise.
Tell me Penny, which progressive public policies DO you support? Because it becomes increasingly clear you oppose almost every major one of them.
Actually, it is the opposite. For some unknown reason you still cling to the label of liberal, but as stated above, it becomes increasingly clear you are almost diametrically opposed to every major theme of liberalism: equality, level playing field, gun policies, economic policies, non-discrimination policies, prison reform, anti-authoritarianism. For some reason you desperately want to belong to a movement, with which you have nothing in common with.
I don’t, because he spouts a lot of bullshit about topics he knows nearly nothing about, he does shoddy research, and uses faulty reasoning. Anyone who has even a bit of knowledge about the subjects he talks about sees right through him. Economics and regulations is a big one where he completely fails and just props up his own political views. Or at least tries to.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Citation needed.
Tone trolling.
It is delusional to be sceptical about ultra-libertarian billionaires using their vast wealth and power to push their beliefs and political viewpoints to kids? I indeed see some delusion here, but it is not us.
I’d argue that the sort of economic pseudo-science the Kochs push is actually far more damaging than either creationism or anti-vax pseudoscience. It keeps tens of millions on people in poverty, restricts their ability to flourish, impairs their health and individual economic prospects, and drives them into early graves, all whilst impairing the economy in aggregate on a national and international scale.
Then, of course, there’s their advancement of climate-change denialism… Only time will tell just how bad the effects of that are going to be, but it’s quite likely to be very, very bad indeed.
Incredibly wrong. What is definitive about a value judgment? Nothing.
We can argue about the word “definitive” all day if you’d like, but I’d say the evidence for evolution approaches that standard. The evidence for progressive/liberal political beliefs does not because of all the assumptions and value judgements we make about that evidence. See more below.
Can you comprehend what you’re writing? What skeptic talks about the PRELIMINARY results of ONE study in such conclusive terms? Only a believer…
This is the problem. You’re making a value judgment when you claim to know, in a political debate, that your side is “correct.” Here’s a hypothetical: is the US system of government more “correct” than the UK’s system of government? This is not a question science can answer. Another hypothetical: Is Australia’s gun control policy more “correct” than the US’ gun control policy? Again, science cannot answer. People govern themselves based on value judgments that, at their core, are equally valid. Science can help to inform questions like: if you want X then Y would be a reasonable policy to follow. But even questions like that come with many implicit assumptions.
Gay marriage, abortion, social security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, a non-interventionist foreign policy, etc. More below.
Talk about citation needed – explain to me where I’ve taken a position on any of these things? You’re simply making shit up. I’m in favor of every one of the themes you mention, broadly defined. So are the Koch brothers, if you (or anyone else here) would take the time to figure out what they stand for.
Let’s take anti-authoritarianism, for example. Libertarianism is based on anti-authoritarianism. Their literature is filled with warnings about the coercive nature of government. And I don’t know of any major politician or party platform that would be opposed to equality, level playing field, or non-discrimination policies. The Koch’s certainly aren’t. But their value judgments lead them to take radically different policy positions than we do here. And that’s the rub.
Let’s take another concrete example: affirmative action. If I oppose affirmative action (I don’t), you’d likely say that I am opposed to equality, a level playing field, and non-discrimination policies. But the opponent of affirmative action can credibly claim that it is us who are opposed to those same themes (i.e. Justice Roberts’s famous line: the way to stop discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race).
So what you want me to ascribe to are not broad based themes, but specific policy proposals/remedies that flow from innumerable assumptions and value judgments you’ve made about those proposals. That I will not do blindly.
So when PZ says “They fill students heads with bad history, grossly oversimplified economics, and the worship of destructive policies,” I’m going to call bullshit because this is demonstrably wrong. To believe this sentence is true, you’d have to believe that the Kochs are (if we believed in this sort of thing) the devil incarnate. Skeptics should know better.
Note also something that you’ll likely never read about here (to PZ’s detriment) – “What happens when cunning, obscenely rich PROGRESSIVES get it into their heads to promote their ideas.” There are plenty of billionaire progressives engaging in similar initiatives, but that’s ok because they’re on our side.
We get closer to a skeptical position on politics when we can understand our own biases and how those biases color our political value judgments. We get farther away from the skeptical position the more we demonize our political opponents and the more we believe that skepticism somehow leads us to liberal policy choices. In almost every case, it doesn’t.
Penny L
ROFL
Obviously you didn’t read the link. We’re not talking about “120 psychology undergrads needing Credit Points”. We’re talking about one of the world’s strongest economies finally implementing a minimum wage. And NONE of the things opponents predicted would happen did happen, but lots of the things the supporters said would happen. You have two models, two sets of predictions, a huge set of data (an entire industrialised country) and the predictions of one model utterly failed. What does scepticism tell you about the models.
Besides, we’re still waiting for your evidence that minimum wages hurt workers.
That depends, of course, on the stated goal. But both countries state to have the same goal: to keep the population safe and avoid unnecessary suffering. We can now evaluate which country manages to achieve that goal better. Australia wins.
Which rock do you live under? Ever heard of initiatives to ban gay marriage? Somebody called Wendy Davis and who supports her?
Only because you’ve framed the question badly. Is the US’s gun policy more dangerous to its populace than almost any other country in the world?
Besides, Penny l, you seem to be fundamentally ignorant on what science is. It’S a method to test claims. Of course it has no intrinsic moral values, but it allows us to test actual policies against the stated values and goals of those who implement them.
This shows that school to prison pipeline hurts black students, does not lead to equality but works against it. So if you keep supporting those policies while stating you care about equality, we can then call you a liar.
Of course, science allows you to find out how to be most efficiently an anti-social bastard as well.
Who gives a shit about the opinion of somebody who doesn’t understand the concept of empirical data, how it is collected, and what it means. Reality has a liberal bias, and you haven’t shown otherwise with empirical (scientific) data. There are things call social sciences. They use scientific methods to collect data.
No they can’t, unless they can show with empirical data (they can’t), that their ideas give the right results. Look at evidence. Help is needed to make society equal. You claim to know that. You obviously don’t.
Yet you present not one empirical piece of evidence to demonstrate it is wrong. All you offer is your emotional trolling. Quit spewing your bullshit. One can study the effects of proposals and come to conclusions as to what works.
Maybe the problem is that we’Re discussing this under different premises:
While most f us uncritically accept that hundreds of dead children, massive poverty and huge imprisonment rates are a bad thing, Penny L has looked at those issues and since science doesn’t say anything about dead toddlers as such has decided that those issues are totally out of the realm of scepticism and science and people discussing the best ways to prevent that. Just a matter of taste…
Simply delusional.
Both countries most definitively do NOT “state to have the same goal.” Read up on why the US has a 2nd Amendment to begin with.
Within the framing of your response are implicit value judgments: you value security more than you value freedom. The gun control opponent values freedom more than they do security. How, exactly, is science going to help resolve that value judgment?
Point taken. But it is worth noting that the leaders of both parties in the US thought gay marriage should be illegal until just a short while ago. And this is one of the few areas where science can claimed to have significantly helped the public policy debate – thank you for bringing it up.
I didn’t frame the question badly – I framed it in a way that did not include implicit value judgments, the way your restated question does. As I noted above, implicit in this framing is a value judgment of security over freedom. Other people don’t make the same judgment.
You have some reading and comprehension issues. Do you not understand the implicit value judgments you are making? Are you completely unaware of your biases and the assumptions you’re making?
Let’s take an extreme example of your line of thought: Do you drive? Have you ever willingly ridden in a car? Well you must uncritically accept thousands of dead toddlers. You insist on perpetuating and supporting the evil car industry and its pseudo-scientific “safety tests.” Cars KILL hundreds of thousands of people a year, including innocent toddlers!! How could you EVER ride in a motor vehicle is beyond me.
You can frame almost any issue with value judgments like this – if you say (like gun control proponents have said) that one car accident fatality is too many, then you get to a policy proposal that requires banning all motor vehicles. If I don’t agree, then you can accuse me of saying science doesn’t say anything about dead toddlers – like you just did.
Public policy is about trade-offs – we drive because of the many positive benefits that come from it, and we’re willing to accept the very real chance that the next time we get in a car will be our last (until driverless cars come along). Those trade-offs are either acceptable to us or not based on our own value judgments.
Penny L, are you always this dishonest or does your behaviour on Pharyngula require som extra effort on your part?
First:
Claim “minimum wage hurts the poor” is a testable (and tested) claim. It is not value judgement at all. As such it fully falls into category of claims that can be examined and evaluated empirically and skeptically.
Second:
You completely ignored the link I provided, you did not provide counter evidence at all and you have not conceded falsity of your point. I was even kind enough to provide english link, although it was tree months out of date. FYI, today I heard actual information about the minimum wage impact in Germany from the radio. After a whole year, there are still no predicted adverse effects but there are some positive predicted effects.
Second:
Slippery slope fallacy and false analogy fallacy. Cars and weapons are not analogous in any respect and I think you (certainly someone like you) had this explained to you multiple times. It is a favorite argument of gunfondlers, it crops up quite often.
Third:
If someone values freedom more than safety in the case of weapons, they should be able to say why the tradeoff is such as they say it is. Shouting “second ammendment, freedom” is not an argument, it is not even value judgement, it is just a meaningless shout. Behind every value judgement there has to be some at least relative or contextual scale of values. So those who oppose gun regulation based on “freedom value” judgements should be able to provide some criteria which they use to assess the values discussed. Such criteria, when provided, can then be assesed skeptically and empirically.
One such criterion that ammosexuals like to point out is that freedom to have weapons lowers crime rate/increases safety. This claim has been falsified. Another one is that only totalitarian regimes restrict access to weapons in order to controll the populace. It has been falsified. etc. etc.
You like to pretend, that value judgements cannot be examined skeptically. You are wrong.
The only things that cannot be assesed empirically are those purely subjective. But value judgements are not purely subjective, because they place value on real life phenomena and their consequences in society.
When someone shouts “I just wanna have guns, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!!!” well, you are correct that this claim is purely subjective (however the response that such a person is immature, irrational and selfish is objectively justified). But the very moment the person tries to justify their exalted love of weapons, they themselves enter the realm of falsifiability.
I’m still a fan of their supposed support for gay marriage, while opposing the very reason why it’s the law of the land. If their best bud Scalia had their way, we’d still have Sodomy Laws and Gay Marriage bans.
They being Penny, for clarification.
*Searches Penny L‘s post for evidence that minimum wages hurt the poor*
*finds none*
Do you think we are goldfish and will happily forget just because you spew more bullshit?
You seem to be lacking reading comprehension or simply don’t bother reading what I wrote. I already said several times that the values and goals lie outside of science.
And Charly has already shown why the cars/weapons analogy fails and that both, proponents of strong regulations and opponents claim that their policies keep people safe. Australia (or Germany, or the UK) show that strong gun regulations keep people safer.
But yeah, you’Re demonstrating again and again your moral bankruptcy. Thinking that thousands of innocent deaths with no demonstrable public benefits are just “trade offs” for the benefit of gunfondlers is simply vile.
Do you seriously not see the value judgments implicit in that claim? Let’s start with the idea of the minimum wage – the value judgment implicit in that policy to begin with is the idea that businesses would exploit their workers and that those workers are incapable of resisting that exploitation.
You will not find an honest economist anywhere who would dispute the notion that eliminating the minimum wage would increase employment. Here’s Nobel Prize winner James Heckman talking about what happened when Puerto Rico adopted a minimum wage in the 1930s:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/01/james_heckman_o.html
Read or listen to the rest of that podcast for more, including some interesting thoughts on income inequality.
So the idea that increasing the minimum wage does not have a cost is not supported by the evidence. The question is how that cost affects lower income workers. Is society better off having 10 people work for lower wages or having (for example) 7 people working for higher wages? There are other possible effects of raising the minimum wage, including higher prices. One of the reasons Wal-Mart is so popular among the poor is that their prices are often the lowest in the area, thus helping the poor meet their basic needs for less money.
Let’s look at this another way – what evidence would you have to see to persuade you that the minimum wage is a bad idea? My guess is that would never happen, and this is evidence of a value judgment on your part. You think the minimum wage is a just policy simply because it avoids a situation where workers could be exploited by their company. That is a valid judgment, but so is the opposite.
You caught me. I assumed (falsely) that you would correctly characterize the study you were citing as evidence of your belief. My bad.
First of all, those who oppose gun regulation do provide those criteria, no doubt you’re unwilling to hear it. Secondly, no, those criteria cannot be assessed empirically. If I want to own a gun because (a) I desire to exercise that freedom, or (b) to use to protect myself or my family in case we are attacked, (c) to deter the government from becoming authoritarian and preventing me from exercising other freedoms, or (d) I desire to hunt for sport – how are those criteria to be assessed skeptically? How do you assess a desire? The 2nd Amendment in the US was written, partly, to prevent the government from disarming its political enemies, as had been done in England and elsewhere in the past. You can argue that sort of thing would never happen in today’s political climate, but how do you address that skeptically?
You can try to claim, as you have, that this reasoning has been “falsified” but that is incredibly wrong. It’s not possible to falsify that idea (especially in light of the fact that it has happened). You are mightily confused and your biases are not allowing you to see that claims to certainty are a mirage.
You’re not arguing with me. I agree that the evidence shows strong gun regulations or confiscation keeps more people safe.
Gun proponents, in my reading, and as I’ve said before, value freedom over security. They’re willing to accept a certain amount of gun deaths in order to exercise the freedom to keep and bear arms (a value judgment). Just like people who ride in cars are willing to accept a certain amount of road deaths in order to exercise their freedoms (a value judgment). You can keep saying that this analogy fails until you’re blue in the face, that doesn’t make it so.
Stay stupid Vivec, it’s been working for you so far.
Penny L
If you seriously think that that’s evidence then only Ayn Rand can help you…
Penny L:
But employment per se is not the goal; it’s a means to the goal.
(The goal is income, and that is not something that would increase)
—
The break-even point is where workers earn just enough to survive to work. Workers who are close to that point are called “the working poor”.
Penny L:
As an Australian*, I quite literally snickered at that claim. I believe some believe it, but I think it’s ludicrous — the actuality is that they value illusory freedom over actual security.
(* I live in a rural area, where many people have firearms licenses)
—
As for your 2nd amendment.. yeah, I’ve seen those “well-regulated militia” doing their bit for freedom in the news, recently.
Penny L, @36:
That’s not a value judgement, it’s an empirical observation from history. Have you heard of the “Gilded Age”? How about the “truck system”?
This is actually a topic which has been studied fairly extensively in the real world. People have gone looking for these “substantial disemployment effects”, and generally failed to find them. Most studies find at most some marginal disemployment effects in small sub-populations, such as teenage restaurant workers (the typical quoted figure is an elasticity of around -0.1 – i.e. a 1% decrease in employment of this group for a 10% increase in minimum wage).
However, there are good reasons to believe that the research on this topic (especially in the US) is contaminated by publication selection bias, with a bias in favour of findings which support negative employment effects, and that this bias is larger than the claimed effects. (See, for example, “Publication Selection Bias in Minimum-Wage Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis”: Doucouliagos, Hristos, and T.D. Stanley, 2009, British Journal of Industrial Relations.)
In this particular case, Heckman is specifically talking about very large increases in the minimum wage. The point he is making is that “minimum wages [?minimum wage changes–Econlib Ed.] are not all the same. Some are bigger, some are smaller”, and that you can’t generalise about one from the other. Let’s look at the wider context of that quote a little shall we?
[My bolds, italics in original]
Now, in context, does that sound like strong support for negative employment effects from typical minimum wage proposals to anybody? Bueller? In fact, he’s clearly saying that in order to see substantial disemployment effects, you have to be looking at very unusual circumstances. It almost looks like you’re quote mining here…
Even those who argue most strongly in favour of negative employment effects in the recent literature (such as Neumark and Wascher, “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research”, 2006, National Bureau of Economic Research) admit that “no consensus now exists about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage” and “we do not view that focus [on employment effects] as entirely appropriate”.
Welcome to the discussion – we’re talking about value judgments in political positions, something you’ve aptly demonstrated. Defining “goals” and “means” includes making many value judgments and implicit assumptions.
It is an observation from history, you’re right. The assumption – and value judgment – is that businesses today, in the current economic climate, and with all the other changes to workplace laws that have taken place in the interim, and with a much freer flow of information courtesy of the internet, would repeat those past employment practices.
I’m not quote mining, I’m not even arguing the position that small increases in the minimum wage have substantial disemployment effects. The point I’m making is that arguing for a minimum wage – at any level – involves value judgments. To approve of a minimum wage you must judge that businesses will exploit their workers, that their workers will have no other recourse but to accept that exploitation, and that you’re willing to accept some level of underemployment or higher prices as a result of wages being set at an artificially high price. Nothing you’ve written disputes any of this, almost all of which I actually agree with.
There is no number that economics can establish which represents the “best” minimum wage. All the discipline can do is describe its affects, and they struggle mightily to reach a consensus on even that.
Remember that my only point of contention is with political advocates who loudly proclaim the certainty of their political beliefs using a veneer of skepticism or saying they’re “just following the data” when in fact there are really numerous implicit assumptions and value judgments baked into that pie. People like Giliell and Charly in this thread (and PZ for that matter) are either lying to themselves or completely unaware of their own biases and value judgments.
There is no need for me to characterise anything. All the necessary info is in the link provided, in an easy to acces, read and understand form. You are shamelessly shifting the burden of proof and avoiding arguments raised.
Germany did not have minumum wage. It implemented it. Employment rose. What anybody says is irrelevant when the reality does not confirm it. It is shamelessly used argument from authority on your part.
I am not interested in talk. I am interested in ata. What happened in Germany is data that no ammount of talk dan talk away.
That is not the idea that is talked about, the idea talked about is whether minimum wage hurts the poor. You are shamelessly shifting the goalposts.
You cannot draw any broad conclusion from what happened in Puerto Rico due to one policy with regard to what the same policy does when implemented somewhere else at different time. The context was different – there was completely different politics than today, Puerto Rico was heavily exploited by US before, during and after 1930. You are shamelessly cherrypicking data and you have to go 85 years back to an relatively isolated heavily exploited island with in order to do so.
I could go on, but what is the point. You have no shame, I am done with you in this thread.
That’s not an assumption, there’s ample evidence to show for it like huge increase of those damn 400€ jobs in Germany which leave workers without any benefits. Wages of 2.50€, exploitation of migrant worker in slaughterhouses etc.
Gods you’re so deep in denial it’s hard to believe.
Of course there are. “Suffering is bad” is a value judgement. “Freedom is good” is a value judgement. The thing is, it’s not usually the basic value judgements that are in dispute – for example, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a hard-core neo-liberal that would openly argue that there’s nothing wrong with having a substantial number of people begging in the streets for food. Equally, I don’t think there really are many people on “the left” who genuinely believe that we’d be better off with the state dictating every aspect of people’s lives.
However, what I do see, fairly often, is people advocating policies on grounds which have no empirical support, or which the preponderance of evidence is actually against – e.g. opposing a relatively modest increase in the minimum wage on the basis that this would result in significant employment losses.
Another thing I see fairly often is people accepting that all the available empirical evidence points in one direction, but then arguing that this should be disregarded because of various speculative or theoretical reasons – e.g. acknowledging that employers have, in the past, consistently engaged in all manner of ruthless exploitation of their workers whenever possible and to the maximum extent possible, and that those workers have pretty much always had no recourse but the accept that exploitation, but that if we were to eliminate the various safeguards society has developed to control this now, the situation would not be repeated for some reason. (Despite the fact that employers continue to exploit their workers to the maximum extent permitted by law, and indeed often beyond it.)
Neither of these example arise from an open disagreement about the basic value propositions. In the first case, the argument is simply contrary the the available evidence, and in the second case, special pleading is invoked to argue that the evidence doesn’t matter. In either case, pointing out that the arguments presented are contrary to the evidences is entirely reasonable.
Charly – you’re right, I should have read the link you provided. I’ve now read it and its worse than I thought.
For starters, it is apparently not a universal minimum wage:
Secondly, the link you provided was not to an actual scholarly study. Hell, it wasn’t even written by an actual economist. This is the guy who wrote the earth shattering evidence you now claim overturns everything we thought we knew about economics:
He has skin in the game. The trade union movement’s argument for higher wages is bolstered by claims that a minimum wage has had nothing but positive effects for workers and the German economy in general. This is evidence of only one thing – you biases.
Now, this guy may well be right. Actual economists studying the data from Germany may well come to the same conclusions, overturning years of research in the field. Unlike you, I’m willing to change my mind when new evidence becomes available. Also notice how you treat evidence from Puerto Rico – evidence that does not confirm your biases. You minimize it and say I shamelessly cherrypicked data (when in actuality it was the guy with the Nobel Prize who brought it up).
Your examples are designed to minimize the value judgments inherent in these decisions. You say those who oppose a “modest increase” in the minimum wage don’t have empirical support for “significant employment losses.” Deciding what is “modest” and what is “significant” involves value judgments. Indeed, deciding that the government should intervene at all in the labor market involves value judgments. There are many people who would disagree about all of these propositions.
Remember again what started this minimum wage debate. The absolute certainty of some people here that this proposition – minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor – is wrong, and that conclusion is supported by science.
Not only is that not true, it is impossible. It is a question science cannot address because it involves a number of value judgment and assumptions.
Opps – citation for my first quote above: http://newsroom.iza.org/en/2015/04/09/whats-new-with-germanys-minimum-wage/
No, my examples are drawn from decades of real-world experience of actually observing these sorts of debates, looking at the actual peer-reviewed evidence, and your own attempts at supporting your case. You cited Heckman, and he clearly says that typical minimum wage increases have effectively no employment effect.
All science involves value judgements – not least the value judgement of what questions are worth investigating. The entire field of economics in particular is built on value judgements, particularly the judgement that more utility (in the technical sense) is better than less.
The questions of what is “modest” and what is “significant” can be addressed through statistical means. For example, the disemployment effects of minimum wage increases, when they appear exist at all, are often not statistically significant. Statistical significance is not a value judgement, it is a mathematical one. When I say that “modest” minimum wage rises do not result in “significant” employment losses, this is exactly what I mean – a minimum wage rise is by definition “modest” if it would not result in a statistically significant loss of employment, based on the usually accepted levels of employment elasticity.
You haven’t refuted the data. Your claims are dismissed as fuckwittery. All you do is obfuscate the discussion for your own nefarious reasons. You don’t have a point that I can see, which is just that you don’t like your ideology and heros guffawed because they don’t look at the data.
Ok, so next time an antivaxer shows me lancet study about how vaccines cause autism, I will not dismiss it as nonsensical because that would be value judgement by me. A value judgement that old studies should not be used as evidence if newer studies with better data are available to be precise. The same for homeopathy (there are actually studies that show statistically significant positive effects – they are outliers).
I am also amazed by the attempt to answer to my link about germany from september 2015 (when the effects of minimum wage were aleready known and documented) with link from april 2015, half a year earlier. Mind boggles. And you wonder why I call you dishonest, Penny L.
Before 2014 and earlier a lot of german economists sung the same tune as you and dire warnigs were issued left and right. I saw it, I read it, I heard it – and I thought it might be true. Now the experts are scratching their heads when reality did not conform to their value judgements and changing their tune accordingly (and I changed my mind as well):
http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Mindestlohn-schadet-Arbeitsmarkt-nicht-article16676511.html
http://www.flassbeck-economics.de/ein-jahr-mindestlohn-in-deutschland-die-prognosen-des-mainstream-und-die-realitaet/
People are less dependent on state support + all three strongest EU economies have also highest minimal wage (FR, UK, GE):
http://www.volksstimme.de/deutschland-welt/wirtschaft/20160127/wirtschaftspolitik-mindestlohn-entlastet-die-staatskassen
http://www.flassbeck-economics.de/ein-jahr-mindestlohn-in-deutschland-die-prognosen-des-mainstream-und-die-realitaet/
All links in german, all less than one month old. If you canot read them, tough luck. I hope they work, preview button does not work for me for unknown reason.
It will take some time for some german economist write paper on this, but the data are already here and even if the slightly positive effect is not statistically significant, there is definitively NO statistically significant negative effect, especially not on the poor people (who are measurably less poor, and therefore better of).
Given that “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”, and I’ve so far seen no real attempt to provide any evidence for the general proposition that “minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor”, I think we’ve actually been pretty fucking generous here.