Right wing libertarian politics have never really caught on in Ireland. Part of this is due to the memory of the Great Famine of 1845-8. The Famine, though caused by blight, was made worse by the prevailing conservative doctrine of laissez faire. This was the prime example of politicians believing the free market will solve everything, that it would be unethical for the government to intervene and that helping the poor would only make them lazy and dependent. This was an experiment of a world with only minimal government, of free market principles in practice, the result was so disastrous that a million people died. The normal market is governed by supply and demand. Goods are sold to whoever will … Continue reading “Laissez Faire And The Irish Great Famine”
Category: Economics
The Advantage Of The Minimum Wage
There is a lot of debate over the minimum wage. An internet search of the topic will return with almost unanimous condemnation of it. It is blamed for unreasonably pushing wages too high and causing unemployment. It is decried as a major cause of economic problems rather than the solution. However, these arguments are based upon over simplified ideas and graphs. Now, most of them look nice and are easy to understand, but they should be judged on how well they describe the real world. The simple fact is they don’t really. The main argument is that if a workers marginal productivity is 5 euro, they cannot be paid 6 euro. Now this presumes that the boss knows what the … Continue reading “The Advantage Of The Minimum Wage”