… is from page 44 of my late, great colleague Walter Williams’s superb 1982 book The State Against Blacks:
Moral philosophers can get into unending debate over whether it is fair for some people to have to pay higher prices for what they buy than others and accept lower prices for what they sell (as in the case of labor services) than others do. But solid economic evidence shows that whatever the handicap, preventing people from lowering (raising) the price of what they sell (buy) tends to reinforce the handicap.
DBx: Indeed so.
If for whatever reason all employers believe Smith to be a less-desirable worker than is Jones, the government harms, rather than helps, Smith by refusing to allow him or her to work at a wage lower than is the wage paid to Jones. The government can no more help Smith with such a prohibition than it would help, say, the owner of a used car were the government to prohibit this owner from selling his or her vehicle at a price lower than the price paid for a new car.
