How can you discuss basic economics with liberals?

Question

I have long been amazed at how people will buy into a belief and have no real sense of the reality of it. Obama promises one program after another and people jump on it because they think it's free, someone will take care of me. How can you explain to the masses that these programs cost money?! There is no such thing as free! It's like the minimum wage issue. On the surface it's easy to say, "sure raise it, everyone should make more money" . But how do you effectively teach a basic economic fact that when you raise wages, prices go up and those near the bottom of the pay scale find themselves worse off than before! Plus, small business has to lay people off because they lose money. I get frustrated because it's hard for a conservative to explain these things to people who have no basic understanding of economy, government, taxes, etc. Adams said that a well educated citizenry was essential for a republic... we don't seem to have that. Harsh, I know, but thats my observation.

Answer 1

You are, of course, entirely correct.  Ideally, the requisite knowledge would be taught in high school civics classes, but it obviously is not happening.

Answer 2

If you assume that people do not know what is good for them you undermine the basic assumption  of economic theory which  depends on rational agents who act in their own self interest. Maybe you should read some advanced economics and try to understand why econ 101 does a bad job describing the world.  Instead of assuming that you have a monopoly on the truth you might listen to what other people have to say and why they disagree with you..

Your example of raising the minimum wage  increasing prices by an equal amount is absurd and can be show to be false both theoretically and empirically as well as by causal observation or what has happen over the last year. No wonder no one believes what you say.

Answer 3

I definitely have to agree with you. It seems alot of people make false claims and don't support them with any sort of premises. Alot of people on this site, based on the numerous answers I have seen, commit alot of logical fallacies. Mostly it is political agendas. People believe what they want to hear.

In response to Meg:

This is quite an odd answer. Your use of the economic concept of rationality is completely incorrect. Rationality assumes individuals make optimal choices under the conditions they are faced with. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Further, when you claim that Economics does a bad job of describing the world you take the situation way out of context. I have read upper division economic textbooks and am familiar  with the idea that economic models don't predict reality with 100% accuracy. This is understood in Economics as with all sciences. Models are simplifications of the world. Do you think that because newton described his theory of gravity in the context of a vacuum of space, that it is inaccurate and useless. No of course not. Economic models are very useful things and are understood to be simplifications.

Your bit on the minimum wage is not entirely correct. In some sense, yes, depending on how elastic a product is, the produce may eat some of the increased minimum wage, but it has been shown that there is a significant reduction of employment in the minimum wage earners.