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Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I find it hard to entertain an economist's morality argument unless it goes something like, "We shouldn't do that because it could harm people." In this article, The Economist is telling governments to force companies to produce "large supplies at fixed prices". Even if governments had that kind of authority in free countries, and they probably don't, that sounds like a policy that could easily cause harm. Companies can't just push one lever to maximum and expect nothing else to change. But most importantly, we don't need it. Yes, we've seen some small-time punks buy up too much hand sanitizer, but the big manufacturers are being decent. As The Economist pointed out, "3M, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of high-end masks ... has stuck to its list prices and doubled its production." So there's not very good empirical or theoretical support for this idea. But there's hope for economists - "more than half" of economists surveyed about this idea criticized it. |
You are comparing the moral stance of supporting eugenics with the moral stance of supporting a minimum wage? Are those just the first two random moral stances taken by economists that you recall, or are you trying to color the perception the latter with the true horror of the former?