What Color Is The Sky In Their World? The (Il)Logic Behind Progressive Policies

We love to make fun of the liberals and progressives because they believe in the perfectibility of Man, and are willing to suspend belief in immutable laws of economics in furtherance of their goals. Many of us have first-hand knowledge of the destruction wrought by rent control and minimum wage laws, and here is a concise explanation of the (lack of) mindset that allows otherwise minimally intelligent people to believe in things that just aren't so.

What If All Reality Were Optional?

Take, for example, support for rent control. Having the state keep the monetary prices of rental units below the values that would arise in free markets is believed by many pols and pundits – and by nearly all “Progressives” – to effectively keep the actual market values of rental units at whatever low prices the state sets. In this reality-is-optional world, when the state pushes down nominal rental prices, the quantity of rental units supplied not only does not fall, it increases to match the increase in the quantity of rental units demanded.

Want more housing for folks with modest incomes? No problem! We’ll just push the rental prices lower to increase ordinary folks’ access to housing. See, the world is such a simple place!

Similar reality-is-optional ‘solutions’ are minimum-wage statutes (for increasing the pay of low-skilled workers) and mandated paid-leave (for increasing the welfare of all workers).

Of course the hard Left uses these dupes as fodder, and they care not a whit that unemployment will rise and housing will grow both more scarce and less habitable, because that is the goal, and not an unintended consequence.

&topic=world_news"> posted by CBD at 02:15 PM

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