"You can't detect it, but it's really happening" is a bad argument for ghosts, a bad argument for Gods, and a bad argument for psychic powers.
But apparently it's a good argument for not raising minimum wage in case it causes unemployment.
"detect" = measured, identified as an empirical fact, or observed and noted down by the researcher
There are literally millions of events which we know to be good or bad, though they're not empirically observed -- "detected" -- as verifiably connected to the particular cause. And we have to make judgments and decisions about promoting the good events and preventing the bad ones.
What about the damage done to all consumers by
shoplifters. How do we DETECT which consumers had to pay higher prices, or how much higher, as a result of the costs resulting from shoplifters? Probably every item you buy had a slightly higher price you had to pay because of the past losses caused by shoplifters. Maybe that higher price can be estimated in some cases, but there is no empirical data to really determine how much higher the price was due to this one isolated factor. The estimate is only a guess, probably off by a significant percentage. We cannot prove it with actual data showing how much lower the price would have been had there not been the losses due to shoplifting.
How do we "detect" climate change damage? The damage done by
climate change and various kinds of
pollution usually cannot be measured empirically to show how much was caused by each harmful substance, or which victims suffered what harm. Even if the measurements today are improved enough, with additional data now available so some of the harm is measurable, this modern data was not available 30 or 40 or 50 years ago when it was known by climate scientists that the harm was happening or was forthcoming. The additional data over time is a luxury added to earlier information and math which underlay the earlier predictions. But even today it's debatable that this or that flood was really caused by climate change and wouldn't have happened anyway. There's some evidence, but seldom the hard empirical data to show that it would not have happened except for this change in the amount of carbon emissions.
Almost any
cost of production can be challenged as being a
cause of higher price. Higher cost for safety, for insurance, restructuring, compliance with regulations, downsizing or expanding, training, relocating, etc. -- in every case it can be argued that the company ABSORBS this cost without raising its price, because it has to, as part of its competition with other companies, and so there's no harm in imposing higher costs onto companies, as long as someone thinks there might be some benefit from it. Every economist and businessperson knows this is not true, and that every additional cost translates into higher price at some point, but they cannot prove it with empirical data showing how prices inevitably increased in step with the higher costs in each case. Even when a higher price happens later, there's no way to prove empirically what caused that particular price increase.
Some protectionist boneheads like to argue that when Nike Shoes relocated to Asia, there was no price reduction as a result, and that this relocation actually led to INCREASES in the price of Nike shoes. This one isolated case -- cited obsessively by the boneheads (because they have no other examples?) -- might have deviated somewhat from the norm, but there are obviously hundreds or even thousands of factors driving the price up or down, so just because there is an exception here or there to the general rule in no way undermines the principle that lower production cost leads to lower price.
I.e., lower price than would have been otherwise -- "ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL" as they say.
These are legitimate judgments about what causes higher costs and thus harm to the overall economy.
Many examples from history demonstrate the same truth, about harm caused, even if the empirical data cannot pinpoint the exact cause.
E.g., it is agreed by virtually all historians and economists that Spain did severe economic damage to its future well-being when it expelled Jews and Muslims in 1492. There's no doubt of this, just in terms of the country's future economy alone. And yet any empirical data shows only an increase in Spain's prosperity in the following 100 years, when it became the most prosperous European economy. The available empirical data only indicates a good rather than bad outcome. It's only theory, based on some good reasoning, and centuries of experiencing good and bad economics, trade, capitalism, investment, risk-taking -- which tells us this was a loss for Spain rather than a benefit.
Prohibition, Black Market
Minimum wage law is not something positive, but is a
prohibition against production. I.e., against certain kinds of production, making it illegal for that work to be done. Just as there is pressure in society to produce alcoholic beverages, or do other things people want, there also is pressure to get work done while keeping the cost down. When anything desired is suppressed or prohibited, there is a loss of it, or reduction in the amount of it that happens, even though a "Black Market" emerges which causes much trouble and conflict, and even fanfare. The desired activity which is suppressed does decrease and is a loss for those who wanted it. (Prohibition in the U.S. did result in less alcohol consumption, along with increased crime, etc.)
https://www.google.com/search?q=Pro...57j33i160.21236j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
If it's destructive crime, it may need to be suppressed, but how is lower cost of labor a crime which causes destruction? The result of it is MORE PRODUCTION taking place, not destruction. Usually the particular workers in question are being made better off, because they made that choice and they are the best judge of what makes them better off. And all others also are made better off, because of the increased profitable production and lower-cost products desired by consumers.
The damage done by suppressing production is obviously real, even though we cannot prove with empirical facts how much the consumers are losing, or how much harm is done to those producers being suppressed. We can't empirically measure
the production which was suppressed, or the
production which would have happened if those particular producers had not been suppressed and their individual choices overruled by the outside forces impinging onto them.
We cannot empirically identify the numbers of
marginal workers priced out of the market, denied a job they would have taken in preference to no job at all. That which was suppressed and blotted out from ever happening can never be empirically measured and compared to the results gained by those who suppressed them -- just as we cannot measure the Gross Output which would have been produced by those individual Jews and Muslims expelled by Spain. When it's prohibited and suppressed and vanquished from having ever happened, all the empirical data is wiped out forever, and all we can "detect" is whatever else happened without being suppressed by the violent powers imposing their version of reality onto whatever hapless victims got in their way.
nymag.com
