"The inverse relationship
between quantity demanded and price is the core proposition in economic
science, which embodies the presupposition that human choice behavior is
sufficiently rational to allow predictions to be made. Just as no physicist would
claim that "water runs uphill," no self-respecting economist would
claim that increases in the minimum wage increase employment. Such a claim, if
seriously advanced, becomes equivalent to a denial that there is even minimal
scientific content in economics, and that, in consequence, economists can do
nothing but write as advocates for ideological interests. Fortunately, only a
handful of economists are willing to throw over the teaching of two centuries;
we have not yet become a bevy of camp-following whores."
~James M. Buchanan, 1986 Nobel laureate in economics, writing in the
Wall Street Journal on April 25, 1996[Obviously that last sentence was written prior to Paul Krugman becoming a columnist for the NY Times]
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