Links 2023-06-18

Let's tackle some commonly held views.

These all get at some version of counter conventional wisdom. I would be surprised if at least one of them doesn’t rankle you if not “offend” you. Enjoy!

Bryan Caplan provides a gun rights guide for kids. Among his 16-point plan is this:

If we think carefully and calmly, what do we learn about guns and violence? In 2021, guns were used to commit about 21,000 out of 26,000 U.S. homicides. One year earlier, 32% of American adults surveyed owned guns. That’s over 80 million people - or about one gun murder per 4000 gun owners. The implication is clear: The overwhelming majority of gun owners are totally harmless. When a black man murders someone, we don’t punish all blacks. Instead, we try to punish the guilty - and leave the innocent in peace. Why shouldn’t we show gun owners the same consideration? Why should we scapegoat millions for the crimes of a few monsters?

Michael Munger reveals a technique he uses to teach why minimum wage laws are bad policy. He starts with two questions:

1. What percentage of workers in the US work at the minimum wage?

2. If you have a job in the US, at the minimum wage, where does that put you in the world income distribution?

[spoiler alert: the answers are (1) <2% and (2) >85%.]

Then he turns the common man’s worry about gentrification around to argue that worries about it apply directly to minimum wages.

If you force much higher wages — and a “living wage” of $15/hour for an entry-level job in fast food is much higher — then you will “gentrify” jobs. Where $7.25/hour can work for someone with no experience, if we double wages up to $15/hour then a different class of worker will “move in.” People with no experience and at most a high school diploma will be facing experienced college graduates who now want that $15/hour job. Just as wealthy people gentrify a neighborhood, more experienced people gentrify the jobs that poor people once depended on.

Michael Huemer provides a summary of his summary of his views on authority. Specifically it is his views on state authority (i.e., the government). His conclusion:

So why does the state have authority? The simplest answer: It doesn’t. That’s all just a giant illusion that people are under. Government officials are just people like the rest of us, with no more right to command us than anyone else. State’s don’t have authority (the right to impose their will on us); they merely have power (the physical ability to impose their will).

Art Carden uses the example of Graceland to show how economic growth has most certainly flowed more to the benefit of the non-rich as opposed to the rich. His concluding paragraph:

Allegedly, American officials wanted Soviet officials to see Graceland because it showed how this is the land of opportunity. Even a poor kid from Tupelo, Mississippi could make it big in the Land of Opportunity. The real “capitalist achievement,” however, isn’t Graceland. It’s the fact that compared to the stuff of the average person’s day-to-day life in 2023, Graceland just isn’t that impressive.

Elvis had fourteen! TVs at Graceland. My household has at least fifteen—my son himself has two big screens in his room. Each of these is almost immeasurably better than what Elvis could have enjoyed even if he sat all fourteen up in the same room for viewing at the same time. Reading Carden’s article reminded me of a post I wrote a few years ago partially listing things that the super rich cannot have a better version of what than a typical middle-class person can enjoy. That was comparing people of the same time (today). It is even more stark as we compare today’s middle and lower class to yesterday’s wealthy.

Carden’s key point is that the big difference between living in the past and living today is not how much better the wealthy have it. It is how much better the non-wealthy today live compared to the wealthy of the past.