Source: Center for a Stateless Society
by Kevin Carson
“[L]et’s take a look at a quote from Ludwig von Mises, in Epistemological Problems of Economics: ‘If a contradiction appears between a theory and experience, we must always assume that a condition pre-supposed by the theory was not present, or else there is some error in our observation.’ … according to Mises — whom Walter [Block], as a devout Austrian economist, presumably reveres — there’s a direct contradiction between the claim that wages are determined by marginal productivity and the associated prediction that minimum wage increases will cause unemployment, and the empirical observation that a $20 minimum wage increase did not, in fact, increase unemployment. The clear implication, as Mises put it, is that ‘a condition pre-supposed by the theory was not present.'” (03/06/25)