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George Will on the Minimum Wage

George Will had the audacity to call for the correct minimum wage, to wit zero.  You can read Will’s entire article here [1].    However here is Will’s money quote:

Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities’ prices

That labor, as in the fruits of an employee/s endeavors, is a commodity is simply a fact.  That state attempts to control commodity prices simply create problems is easily discerned historical observation.

Never to dissuaded by facts. liberal blogs attacked Will’s asssertion.   Kevin Drum weighed in with ths article [2]  Here is Drum’s money quote:

This, in a nutshell, is the core problem with conservative economics: it views workers as commodities. Naturally it follows from this that we should be free to treat workers like commodities, rather than as human beings. (See here [3] for a recent example.)

Most conservatives are careful not to state this belief quite so baldly, but Will must have slipped up this morning. But don’t blame him. He’s just saying out loud what all the rest of them usually say only under their breaths.

Drum’s problem is simple.   In order to refute Will, Drum had to distort. lied about, what Will wrote.   Will wrote that  labor, as in the fruits of an employee’s endeavors, is a commodity.   Drum responded that laborers, the employees, are not commodities.   You are not a commodity.  The labors  you provide your employer is a commodity.

If Drum, and the liberals, want to attampt to refute Will, who is only stating classic economics, they need to refute what Will wrote, not their distortion of what Will wrote.