If the cost of labor increases, someone has to pay for it. Laborers may pay in the form of decreased work opportunities, investors may pay in the form of decreased returns on capital, or consumers may pay in the form of higher prices required by increased costs.
What's weird is the world of <i>National Review</i>, where it troubles no one to call for huge spending cuts and slashing government at the domestic level while defending the worst form of global imperialism abroad, complete with reflexive defenses of every violation of human rights and liberty.
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. But even though the <i>New York</i> author, Christopher Beam, tries to be fair to libertarians, in the end he thinks their worldview is wacko. Here is where Beam goes wrong.
The famous physiocratic tenet that only land is productive must be considered bizarre and absurd. It is certainly a tremendous loss of insight compared to Cantillon, who identified land and labor as original productive factors, and entrepreneurs as the motors of the market economy.
Only in the direct presence of the authority figure do you find that most people will obey malevolent orders. Overall, what we find is that authority is a relatively weak way to establish and maintain social order.
