political illiteracy

Somewhere or other I've claimed that one's understanding of minimum wage law is a good litmus test for economic (il)literacy. Here I will claim that the belief that we can have a Welfare State without the Warfare State is a a sure sign of political illiteracy. This is a practical point (E2/P2); there are those of us whose objections to the Welfare State are principled (E1/P1) but people seem unmoved by ethical arguments, so instead I emphasize consequences: welfare leads to warfare and vice versa.

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