You sigh, the song begins, you speak and I hear violins.

It's magic.

— Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne

Like the living wage, which, if mandated by government, magically adds to prosperity, as we hear from our socialist friends and neighbors, who have unswerving belief in the power of government to save the world.

He can who thinks he can. The little engine that could. Socialists, democratic or the other kind — think Soviet, think National as in Germany in the '30s and '40s, think autocracies all over the world who run the banner of gummint uber alles.

These living-wage people need a new name. C'mon, reinvent yourselves. The red flag don't fly hereabouts. We are too bourgeois, for all our flirting with pie in the sky before we die.

Such as Illinois Democrats spending, borrowing, spending some more, and look where we are now, will you? Heading up that old creek, sans paddle, in a cast-iron canoe. Not there quite yet. Give us time. Give economy a chance.

As for that mandated wage — telling employers what to pay employees, or else. Or else what? After that, what? Tell them how to price their goods? Prix fixe for all!

That's mandated wage all over, a fixed price. There's a labor market, out of which can be priced hordes of people not worth the mandated price. Wages are competitive or not. We can price ourselves out of that market — or be priced out.

Socialist policies do that. Want to know about democracy in the workplace, and anywhere else you look? It's the will of the people. When people say free market, that's what they have in mind — lots of people vote on what to pay for things and that vote prevails. It's their money.

So when there's something to sell, a man's time for instance, democracy calls for open bidding, not a state directive. Free market, unhindered by government interference.

No price-fixing.

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Email: jimbowman7@aol.com Twitter: @BlitheSp