A Strange Libertarian Argument for RFK
I recently met a petitioner for RFK, Jr. in a Walmart parking lot. He was collecting signatures to help Kennedy get on the ballot. When I revealed that I am a registered Libertarian, he made a curious libertarian case for Kennedy. Here’s what he said:
He asked me what I thought about the minimum wage; to which I responded that I disagreed with the policy. After that, he cited his credentials—a B.A. in political science and public administration—and began explaining his case for the minimum wage and why Kennedy’s plan to raise it to $15 should be supported by libertarians/
His argument was that raising the minimum wage to $15 would force corporations to pay their employees higher, leading to people leaving welfare, therefore, hypothetically saving taxpayers money—presumably more than the money lost by employers and the resultant increase in the prices of consumer goods. Hence, this is why libertarians should support this policy and by consequence support Kennedy. To the average passerby, this argument might seem reasonable; however, knowing the arguments against the minimum wage inoculated me against this nonsense (Here are links to two of my articles on the minimum wage: “A Higher Minimum Wage Won’t Improve Life in Pennsylvania,” and “California’s Crony Capitalist Minimum Wage Law,”).
The arguments against the minimum wage are plenty, and if you want to learn about them, you can follow the additional links in my articles linked above; however, there is something else about his argument that bothers me—it assumes a specific structure of markets.
Like the typical political scientist and public administrator, he assumed that the supply and demand for labor is completely inelastic—meaning that the quantity supplied and demanded of labor do not change when the price changes. This unwarranted assumption permeates most of public policy. They assume this because it makes it less onerous to get specific predictions at the expense of realism. They essentially want to turn public policy into engineering, not because public policy should operate like engineering, but because they want to feel like engineers, or they desire a controlled environment in which they can perform experiments or implement policies. Assuming the total quantity of people employed is a constant helps them to feel more like a hard science, but it does not make them better scientists—it makes them dreamers.
In reality, demand and supply are going to have some degree of elasticity. With this fact taken into consideration, minimum wage increases cause unemployment. If the unemployment is not manifested by workers being fired, hours or other forms of compensation might be cut.
It is true that some people will have a higher compensation after a minimum wage increase, and it is probably true that some people will leave welfare as a result. However, the vast negative consequences resulting from the unemployment effect of minimum wage increases should not be ignored, especially not by those who care about workers.
Furthermore, assuming the minimum wage increase could be used to save public funds, it does not follow that it should. Saving our tax dollars, fighting big spending, and making government more cost efficient are noble goals which should be pursued, but if it is accomplished by shifting the burden of government to businesses, then it is not worth doing at all and some alternative method of achieving these goals should be adopted. Libertarians should only be in favor of decreasing government aggression at the expense of the beneficiaries of government aggression—bureaucrats, politicians, welfare recipients, etc.—not innocent third parties.
This issue speaks to the major problem with Kennedy—he is an unrepentant statist. If he were running as a Democrat or a Republican, his platform would make any libertarian terrified, but since he is running as an Independent, criticized the government COVID response, and supports non-intervention with respect to Ukraine (but not Israel apparently) he somehow gains the support and respect of libertarians despite him being the antithesis of non-aggression for his entire political career.
Just look at his platform. Here is a selection:
Raise the minimum wage to $15, which is the equivalent to its 1967 level.
Prosecute union-busting corporations so that labor can organize and negotiate fair wages.
Drop housing costs by $1000 per family and make home ownership affordable by backing 3% home mortgages with tax-free bonds.
Cut energy prices by restricting natural gas exports.
Support small businesses by redirecting regulatory scrutiny onto large corporations.
Secure the border and bring illegal immigration to a halt, so that undocumented migrants won’t undercut wages.
Negotiate trade deals that prevent low-wage countries from competing with American workers in a “race to the bottom.”
Tax-free 3% government-backed mortgage bonds, to bring the mortgage interest rate back to 2019 levels and even lower.
These policies are clearly not libertarian. Despite his pandering to libertarians, the best he can offer seems to be some COVID talking points and a selective non-interventionist foreign policy. Whether this makes him better than the status quo or not is highly questionable.
I think the Trump candidacy offers a lot more to libertarians—especially since Trump can actually win. The economic policy of the Trump administration may have some overlap with the Biden administration, but the regulatory policy was significantly better than the present Biden admin. The policy of a hypothetical Kennedy admin sounds like it would be the Biden admin on steroids, yet some libertarians still support him because Kennedy will “be a blow the uniparty.” That is questionable.
Furthermore, why Kennedy doing running in the first place? The answer to this question is one of the greatest unknowns in this election. If he plans on winning, he is kidding himself. Even if he manages to get on the ballot in enough states, the probability he obtains any electoral votes is close to zero. Since he will likely lose, what are his ulterior motives? Is he in it to throw the election to either Trump or Biden in exchange for a cabinet seat or some other position of influence? Perhaps.
Libertarians who support RFK, Jr. need to touch grass. Kennedy did not have a come-to-Rothbard moment, not even a come-to-Friedman moment. He is still the same old statist. He is either trying to stage a coup against the establishment so that he can be just as bad as the status quo or possibly worse or he is trying to aid the election of one of the two establishment candidates. He might have some stranger motivation, but his involvement in this race leaves me skeptical.
Regardless, his policy isn’t going to be the thing that seals the deal for me, especially when he calls for government intervention that makes Biden’s policy pale in comparison.