Tips for Economic Arguments (Tip 1)

It is common for people to witness an economic sector in decline and appeal to the value of that sector to society so that politicians might collect tax money to subsidize people producing things and selling them at prices no consumer will pay.  One way to confront these arguments is to repeat their statement, but inserting a different sector for the sector they cherish, then add a comment appealing to the notion that all people have equal value, so long as they earn income ethically and legally.  Here is an example from the misguided Home Economics by Wendell Berry.


Original Quote

Defending the family farm is like defending the Bill of Rights or the Sermon on the Mount or Shakespeare's plays.  One is amazed at the necessity for defense, and yet one agrees gladly, knowing that the family farm is both eminently defensible and a part of the definition of one's own humanity.

—Wendell Berry in Home Economics.  A Defense of the Family Farm.  1986.  Page 162.

Revised Quote

Defending the family farm mechanic shop is like defending the Bill of Rights or the Sermon on the Mount or Shakespeare's plays.  One is amazed at the necessity for defense, and yet one agrees gladly, knowing that the  family farm mechanic shop is both eminently defensible and a part of the definition of one's own humanity.  After all, it is the mechanic that keeps the vehicles running that transport our children to school, our food from the Midwest to the Southeast, deliver medicine to rural areas, and allow us to work where there are good jobs while living where there are good neighborhoods.  Surely, a mechanic is no less valuable as a person than a farmer, nor is his family less valuable, nor is he less deserving of our love and charity—as are plumbers, professors, barbers, secretaries, merchants, managers, teachers, soldiers, CEO's,  data analysts, accountants, salespersons, politicians, ...