left-wing religion
January 23rd, 2007 by 
bkmarcus
George Reisman makes a point that I have often thought, but I don’t think I’ve written anywhere: that the same Left that so happily adopted for itself the label of “reality-based community” back when the neocon warhawks were trying to spin their psychoses as visionary new policy, the same Left that claims to have unanimity on climate science, the same Left that ridicules the biblical literalists for their dogmatic rejection of the evolution of species, that very same Left ignores hundreds of years of economic science whenever it contradicts their socialist and interventionist aspirations.
At least traditional conservatives have the decency to reject reason outright. Leftists pat themselves on the back for logic and intellect, while desperately protecting their faith.
To quote Professor Reisman:
The State Against Economic Law: the Case of Minimum Wage Legislation
When it comes to matters such as the theory of evolution and stem-cell research, so-called liberals—i.e., socialists who have stolen the name that once meant an advocate of individual freedom—ridicule religious conservatives for their desire to replace science with the dictates of an alleged divine power. Yet when it comes to matters of economic theory and economic policy—for example, minimum-wage legislation—these same liberals themselves invoke the dictates of an alleged divine power. Their divine power, of course, is not the God of traditional religion, but rather a historically much more recent deity: namely, the great god State.
Traditional religionists believe that an omnipotent God came before all natural law and was not bound or limited by any such law, but rather created such natural laws as suited him, as he went along. Just so, today’s liberals believe, at least in the realm of economics, that the State is not bound or limited by any pre-existing natural laws. In the case in hand, the State, today’s liberals believe, is free to decree wage rates above the level that would exist without its interference and no ill-effects, such as unemployment, will arise.
See also:
“And Then a Miracle Occurs” by Gary Galles
“The 3 ‘E’s of the Minimum Wage” by yours truly
Posted in LvMI, economics | 
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