The Untruth of the Obvious; Y. Brozen

It was even more obvious that this was (and is) less than $3,000 a year, the official line which an annual income must cross if the recipient is not to be poverty stricken. Therefore, it was ob vious that the minimum wage rate had to be raised to reduce the number of people in poverty beca use of low wages. It seemed equally obvious, then, that there ought to be a law raising the mini mum wage above the poverty line.

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 329 Now that the mInImum wage has reached $1.60, the income of a full-time worker employed at the minimum is $3,328. This, ob viously, is enough to cross the poverty line (with due allowance for inflation) and eliminate all poverty resulting from low wage rates (in covered occupations). The question that arises, how ever, is whether the number of people in poverty has been de creased by eliminating all poverty resulting from wage rates below $1.60 an hour. Obviously, if no wage is paid of less than $1.60 no one at work (in covered occu pations) will be in poverty be cause of a low wage. The Unknown Effects of Minimum Wage Rates Despite all this obviousness, the increase in the statutory mini murn wage rate has increased not decreased - the amount of poverty in America. Although the various upward moves in the statutory minimum have increased the incomes of some people, l they have decreased the incomes of a great many others by causing them to lose their jobs. When the 1 Temporarily. The evidence indicates that the wag'e rates of those whose wag-e is increased by the Fair Labor Standards Act would have reached the levels dic tated by law within a few years without the law.

mInImum was increased in 1956, for example, unemployment among teenagers and women over 45 rose despite the fact that total unem ployment was falling. Usually, when total unemployment falls, unemployment in these two groups falls twice as rapidly. However, this usual relationship was re versed by the rise in minimum \vage from 75¢ to $1.00 an hour in 1956. The fact that increases in the statutory minimum wage cause some people to lose their jobs is hardly debatable. The evidence is more than ample.~ Even the indus tries given special treatment who are allowed to pay less than the full minimum have laid off people 2 James E. Blair, "Regarding the Mini mum Wage," THE FREEMAN, July, 1965. Y. Brozen, Automation and Jobs (Graduate School of Business, Univer sity of Chicago, Selected Papers, No. 18). Marshall R. Colberg, "Minimum Wage Effects on Florida's Economic Develop ment," Journal of Law and Economics, October, 1960.

D. E. Kaun, "Minimum Wag-es, Factor Substitution and the Marginal Producer," Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1965. G. Macesich and C. T. Stewart, Jr., "Recent Department of Labor Studies of Minimum Wage Effects," Southern Eco nomic Jou1·nal, April, 1960. J. M. Peterson, "Research Needs in Minimum Wage Theory," Southern Eco nomic Journal, July, 1962. L. G. Reynolds, "Wages and Employ ment in the Labor-Surplus Economy," American Economic Review, March, 1965.

330 THE FREEMAN June because of a rise in their wage costs. The Philadelphia Inquirer (Jan uary 22, 1968) reported that the Goodwill Industries sheltered workshops, which· are allowed to pay as little as 50 per cent of the statutory minimum, were laying off handicapped workers at the end of January because the agency could not afford the even larger subsidy required than they were already paying to keep these peo ple at work with the rise in the statutory minimum to $1.60 on February 1 and, as a consequence, a rise in the minimum for handi capped workers in sheltered work shops to 80¢. ANew York Times story on February 13, 1967 from Green ville, Mississippi, said that spot checks by civil rights workers in dicated that 100,000 people were deprived of all farm income be cause agricultural workers were covered by the Fair Labor Stand ards Act for the first time and they had to be paid $1.00 an hour.

As a result, 100,000 farm jobs were wiped out. A Wall Street Journal story on September 7, 1965, reported the lay-off of 1,800 women in North Carolina crab meat packing plants when the minimum went from $1.15 to $1.25. A U.S. News and World Report story, in the August 17, 1964 issue, described the effects of the $1.25 minimum on the operation of a shop produc ing mountain-made novelties at Paintsville, Kentucky. The shop was closed, ending the jobs of 200 part-time employees when a new wage-hour office in Pikeville pressed for strict compliance with the minImum wage law. A Wall Street Journal sampling of re tailers, reported August 31, 1961, found that package wrappers were being dismissed, work weeks were being shortened, and substandard employees were being laid off be cause retail stores were to be covered by the minim urn wage law beginning September 3, 1961, as a result of new amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Southern Pine Industry Committee presented evidence in Senate hearings that imposition of the $1.00 an hour minimum in 1956 was a major influence in the closing of numerous sawmills in the South. Professor John Peter son, in his dissertation done in the economics department at the University of Chicago, demon strated that employment adjusted for output and trend fell in saw mills, men's cotton garments, and other industries when the mini mum was raised to $0.75 in 1950. 3 A study· of the seamless hosiery 3 "Employment Effects of Minimum Wages, 1938-1950," Journal of Political Economy, October, 1957.

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 331 RATIO OF NONWHITE TO WHITE TEEN -AGE MALE UNEMPLOYMENT (AGES 16-19) SOURCE: Manpower Report of the President, 1967, pp. 203-04, 216. Employment and Earnings and Monthly Re port on the Labor Force, March, 1968. levels since 1956, approximating or exceeding 14 per cent of those seeking employment in most years. That is a figure in excess of the maximum unemployment among white male teenagers in any year before 1956. Negro male teenage unemployment, however, has gone to even higher levels than white teenage unemployment since 1956, exceeding 21 per cent of those seeking employment in every year in the last decade. Since the full application of the $1.25 minimum industry found a 13 per cent drop in employment in mills whose average wage was less than the minimum when the $0.25 an hour minim um was imposed in 1938 and subsequently raised to $0.325 in 1939. This did not include the decrease in employment in mills which went out of business.

Impact on Negro Teenagers The incidence of unemployment caused by increases in the statu tory minimum wage is falling most heavily on one group. It is a group toward which a great deal of governmental effort is being directed for the purpose of im proving their lot - Negro teen agers. 4 Before the Fair Labor Standards Act raised the mini mum wage to $1.00 in 1956, non white and white male teenage unemployment both were approxi mately the same, oscillating be tween 8 and 14 per cent of those seeking jobs, depending on the state of business. In 1956, when the $1.00 minimum went into effect, nonwhite male teenage un employment surged to levels 50 per cent greater than white male teenage unemployment. (See Ta ble.) White male teenage un employment has stuck at high 4 Y. Brozen and M. Friedman, The J1!Tinimurn lVage: ·Who Pays? (Washing ton, D. C.: Free Society Association, 1966) .

Year Nonwhite 1948 10.0% 1949 16.5 1950 14.9 1951 9.1 1952 9.0 1953 8.2 1954 14.2 1955 13.7 1956 15.3 1957 18.4 1958 26.9 1959 25.2 1960 24.1 1961 26.8 1962 21.8 1963 27.2 1964 24.3 1965 23.2 1966 21.4 1967 24.0 1968 (Feb.) 26.6 White 9.8% 13.8 13.0 8.0 8.9 8.0 13.5 11.2 10.4 11.5 15.7 14.0 14.0 15.7 13.7 15.9 14.7 12.9 10.5 10.8 11.6 Ratio 1.0 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.7 1.7 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.8 2.0 2.2 2.3 332 THE FREEMAN June in 1965, nonwhite male teenage unemployment has soared to lev els 100 per c.ent greater than white unemployment. Sinc.e the rise to $1.40 in February, 1967, nonwhite male teenage unem ployment has in some months been 150 per c.ent greater than white unemployment. This has oc.c.urred despite a more rapid dec.line in the nonwhite partic.ipation rate than in the white rate - a .dec.line whic.h c.arried the nonwhite rate to a level whic.h has been below the white rate sinc.e 1961.5 How to Raise Wages The greatest help we c.an give the Negro today is to repeal the statutory minimum wage. Instead, we are raising it. By· doing this, we are foreclosing opportunity for Negro teenagers. Many are now unable to obtain the jobs where they c.ould learn the skills whic.h would enable them to earn far more than the statutory mini mum.

We do want low wages raised. But passing a law is not the way 5 Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Negroes in the United States: Their Eco nomic and Social Situation (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), BLS Bulletin No. 1511, p. 27. The current participation rate of nonwhite male teen agers has fallen to 46 per cent as com pared to a 54 per cent participation rate among white male teenagers. Employ ment and Earnings and Monthly Report on the Labor Force, March, 1968, p. 42. to do it, although it seems so very obvious that. passing a law will raise the minimum wage rate. Un fortunately, what it does is to lower the wage to zero for a great many people. When the minimum wage went up on February 1, 1967, nonwhite teenage unemploy ment jumped from 20.9 per c.ent in January to 26.2 per c.ent in February. The inc.rease on Febru ary 1 this year jumped nonwhite teenage unemployment from 19.1 in January to 26.2 per c.ent in February (all figures seasonally adjusted) .

The lowest wage rates c.an be suc.c.essfully raised by improving our tec.hnology, by inc.reasing the amount of c.apital - the amount of tools, mac.hines, and other equip ment - and by allowing people en tering the labor forc.e to obtain jobs where they c.an learn the skills whic.h will bring a muc.h higher wage - an opportunity barred to many by the statutory minimum wage. The minimum wage c.annot be raised by law without enormous deleterious ef fec.ts ranging from unemployment for many to riots in the c.ities where the unemployment is c.on centrated. Side Effects of the Law Before passing on to other il lustrations of obviously true propositions concerning economic.

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 333 policy which are false, let me men tion a few other side effects of the minimum wage statute. Among other things, it has resulted in the maintenance of segregated work forces in plants where segregation would otherwise have disappeared. Since an arbitrary increase in wage rates decreases the amount of employment, employers have found that they could fill the re duced number of jobs in any given plant with the available white workers. Without this forced econ omization of labor, they find it necessary to hire blacks as well as whites to fill the larger number of jobs. Another effect has been to force rural and Southern residents to emigrate to Northern and West ern cities since the minimum wage has had its greatest impact on dis advantaged areas not close to ma jor Northern and Western metro politan markets. The result of this is greater population density in Northern city slums, a greater problem of assimilation, and a breakdown of order in the over packed slum areas.

A third effect is that wage rates in our lowest wage occupa tions such as domestic service have been depressed by the mini mum wage laws. G The people who 6 Y. Brozen, "Minimum Wages and Household Workers," Journal of Law and Economics, October, 1962. have lost their jobs in covered occupations have been forced to look for places in noncovered work. People who would have left this work for better jobs in the covered occupations have found no jobs available because of the de cline resulting from the rise in the minimum wage. As a consequence, the supply of people for the non covered jobs has been increased by the minimum wage and has de pressed wage rates for these jobs. Other Policies Producing Unintended Effects There are a large number of other instances in which the gov ernment has intervened with leg islation which seemed the obvious method for accomplishing some de sired goal. However, the results, as in the case of the minimum wage, have been opposite those in tended by the well-intentioned supporters of the legislation. Let me summarize these with some what less detailed analysis than I have given you in the case of the minimum wage.

A Federal effort· is being made to improve deplorable housing con ditions for migrant workers in the United States. Instead ofim proving their lot, it is making farm hands worse off than before. A law that took effect July 1, 1967, is designed to enforce Fed~ eral migrant labor housing stand334 THE FREEMAN June ards. The result is that farm op erators are speeding· up their mechanization of crop harvesting rather than spend the money on improved housing. Such concerns as Heinz and Stokely-Van Camp are closing their workers' camps. As a consequence, migrant work ers' jobs are disappearing and they are being forced out of rural slums into worse urban slums. 7 The tariff, our tax on imports from other countries, is supposed to protect the levels of living of American workers from the com petition of low-paid foreign· work ers. Instead, it has monopolized low-paying jobs for Americans. It has prevented Americans from ob taining the better-paid jobs in our export industries which would have been available except for the trade barriers we have imposed. 8 Jobs in protected industries in the United States pay an average of $2.00 to $2.50 an hour, while jobs in our unprotected export indus tries pay $3.00 to $5.00 an hour.

The Federally sponsored and subsidized urban renewal program was supposed to benefit poverty stricken slum dwellers. Instead, it 7 N. Fischer, "Bad to Worse: Crack down on Migrant Worker Camps May Pack the Slums," Wall Street Journal, August 22, 1967. 8 Y. Brozen, "The New Competition International Markets: How Should We Adapt?" The Journal of Business, Octo ber, 1960. has reduced the supply of housing available to the poor. It has forced them to pay higher rentals than they paid before their homes were destroyed. 9 Also, the urban re newal program has wiped out the livelihoods of hundreds of small business people whose places of business were destroyed. TVA and REA Programs The Tennessee Valley program was supposed to benefit a group of people living in a low-income sec tion of the country. What it has done is to slow the migration of people out of low-productivity, low-paying jobs into high-produc tivity, high-paying jobs. It has subsidized people to stay put where their opportunities are poor. The net result is that per capita income in the Tennessee Valley area has risen less than it would have if there had been no Federal program for the Tennes see Valley.

The Rural Electrification Ad ministration was supposed to help poverty-stricken rural residents. The subsidies provided for farmn Chicag'O Housing Authority, Rehous ing Residents Displaced from Public Housing Clearance Sites in Chicago, 19.57-.58. Joel Segall, "The Propagation of Bull dozers," Jou1'nal of Business, October, 1965. Martin Anderson, The Federal Bull dozer (Cambridge, M.LT. Press, 1964).

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 335 ers in the program have had the opposite result. These subsidies have depressed rural wage rates and left low-income rural dwellers worse off than they would have been without these subsidies. Sub sidized electricity and subsidized power equipment under the REA program are used to reduce farm labor requirements. The result is lower wage rates for farm workers than otherwise would have pre' vailed, a consequence of the re duced demand for their services. Transportation regulation such as that carried on by the Inter state Commerce Commission, in the case of railroads, trucks, barge lines, and oil pipe lines, by the Civil Aeronautics Board in the case of airlines, by the Federal Maritime Commission in the case of ocean carriers, and by the Fed eral Power Commission in the case of gas pipe lines, was sup posed to protect the consumer of transportation services from the exaction of high prices by monop olies and protect small business men from discriminatory rates.

Instead, prices are higher and transportation rates are more dis crimina tory than they would be in the absence of governmental regu lation.t° Most of these agencies set 10 Stewart Joy, "Unregulated Road Haulage: The Australian Experience," Oxford Economic Papers, July, 1964. George W. Hilton, "Barriers to Comprice ·floors, not ceilings, which is hardly a method of encouraging lower transportation rates. Usury laws are supposed to pro tect people from extortionate in terest rates. However, the net re sult appears to be that it simply bars many people from obtaining legal loans because legal lenders will not lend where risks are so high that the legally allowed re turn is not compensatory. The il legal lending racket has sprung up as a result of usury laws. It is surely true that the borrowers from illegal lenders pay much higher interest rates than they would if there were no usury laws.

When we became concerned about safety on the highway and found that most people did not willingly buy seat belts, padded dash boards, and collapsible steer ing gear which would not stab the petitive Ratemaking," I.C.C. Practition ers Journal, June, 1962. Paul W. MacAvoy, The Economic Ef fects of Regulation: The Trunk-Line Railroad Cartels and the Interstate Com merce Commission Before 1900 (Cam bridge: The M.LT. Press, 1965). S. Peltzman, "CAB: Freedom from Competition," New Individualist Review, Spring, 1963. "The Great U. S. Freight Cartel," For tune, January, 1957. S. P. Huntington, "The Marasmus of the Interstate Commerce Commission," Yale Law Journal, 1952. John S. McGee, "Ocean Freight Rate Conference and the American Merchant Marine," The University of Chicago Law Review, Winter, 1960.

336 THE FREEMAN June driver in a collision, it seemed ob vious that injuries could be re duced by passing a law forcing manufacturers to install these items as standard equipment. What is not so obvious, and is a relevant piece of data which we did not bother to determine, is what this does to the average re placement rate and the average life of automobiles. Since this equipment makes a car more ex pensive, auto users find it econom ical to drive. their cars longer than they otherwise would. The conse quent higher average age of cars may result in more failures of parts, more limited use of the lat est advances in making automo biles safe, and more dangerous highway travel with greater fre quency of injury and death. Devices to End Poverty When we became concerned about poverty, we attempted to meet the situation by such devices as various poverty programs, pro vision of job training facilities, generous relief programs, more state grants to educational estab lishments operated by the state, lengthened periods of compulsory school attendance, and an assort ment of similar devices. These are the obvious ways. What is unobvi ous is that the state causes much of the poverty that concerns us, partly by the taxes it imposes to support these programs, partly by its various interventions in the market.

Minimum wage laws create pov erty by forcing people into unem ployment. Agricultural price sup port programs make people poor by raising the price of food and by decreasing job opportunities through the production restric tions imposed to maintain high agricultural prices. Transporta tion regulation prevents industry from moving to disadvantaged re gions where the poor live and pro viding jobs for them. It increases the cost to the poor of migrating to regions where better-paying jobs can be found and prevents them from curing their own pov erty. Union-supporting legislation causes poverty by permitting and encouraging union power to grow to the point where it can be and is used to restrict the entrance of the poor into higher-paying jobs. ll The regulation of the field price of natural gas by the FPC increases its price and the price paid by the poor for cooking and heating fuel,l~ thus deepening the poverty of the poor and forcing some over the borderline into poverty. We 11 H. Gregg Lewis, "Relative Employ ment Effects of Unionism," ArneTican Economic Review, May, 1964.

1~ R. W. Gerwig, "Natural Gas Pro duction: A Study of the Costs of Regula tion," The Journal of Law and Eco nomics, October, 1962.

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 337 could do more for the poor by the repeal of all this legislation than we can possibly do by the special enactments designed to help the poor. Brazen's law No.2 This brings me to Brozen's sec ond law: lll'henever ~ve have an irnpulse to pass a law to alleviate some problern, the n~ore appropri ate action is to repeal a la1lJ. Again, permit me to "prove" my law by example. We are currently concerned about the riots in our cities. The reaction to this problem has been to consider additional legislation. Several proposed acts are before Congress at this moment ranging from making it a crime to cross state lines to foment riots to the institution of new government agencies to do such things as fi nancing and subsidizing the pur chase of private dwellings by the poor. Let us consider one fact: the majority of those arrested during riots for arson, making Molotov cocktails, sniping, looting, and the like are Negro males behveen the ages of 16 and 20. I would sug gest that part of the reason we find such people involved in these activities is that many of them are unemployed. More than 25 per cent of Negro male teen-agel's who would like to have jobs and have been serious enough about this to engage in some job-seeking activ ity are unemployed. Theodore C.

Jackson, the Negro manager of the Fifth Avenue branch of the Bowery Savings Bank in New York, has observed that "if a guy's busy enough involving him self in personal betterment, he doesn't have time for rioting." Since a major reason many Negro teen-agel's are frustrated in their attempts to better themselves is the minimum wage law, we can do n10re to end the rioting problem by repealing this law than by en acting additional laws. I should add that a major ele ment in the Newark riot was the fact that some 22,000 Negroes were about to be deprived of their homes by the Urban Renewal Pro gram. Repeal of this statute would contribute more to ending the riot problem than the enactment of additional statutes. Still another reason that Ne groes are frustrated in their at tempts to better themselves is the fact that unions keep Negroes out of many jobs and severely restrict their entrance into apprenticeship programs. Repeal of the Wagner Act and the Norris-La Guardia Act would do more to open up op portunities for Negroes than the IVlanpower Development Act has managed to do to date or is likely to accomplish in the future. Em338 THE FREEMAN June ployers spend $20 billion a year training people for jobs and they make jobs available for the peo ple they train. The Office of Eco nomic Opportunity spends $2 bil lion a year training people for jobs and many of the jobs for which they train people do not ex ist. The ship's steward training program is a prime example of this. Experienced ship's stewards are finding it difficult to obtain jobs in the dwindling American merchant marine, yet the OEO is training more people for these nonexisting positions. Opening up employer training programs to Negroes by reducing the power of unions to restrict entrance to these programs can accomplish more than additional appropria tions for the OEO. The repeal of the Wagner Act would do more to accomplish this than all the state and Federal fair employment practices acts will ever accom pIish,13 Disorganized Family Life Still another factor in produc ing riot-prone Negroes is the dis organization present in Negro family life. A great· many Negro youths come from broken homes and we know the psychological problems this creates and the tend13 Harold Demsetz, "Minorities in the Market Place," North Carolina Law Re 'view, February, 1965.

encies toward juvenile delinquen cy. Many of these broken homes are a result of our Aid to Families \vith Dependent Children laws. If a mother with dependent children will get rid of her husband, we will pay her handsomely for do ing so in twenty-eight states,14 This may be an important factor in accounting for the rise from 30 per cent of the families in some Negro ghettos having no male breadwinners to 44 per cent in the past two decades. 15 Perhaps we should repeal this law, or at least some parts of it. Let me add another instance where repealing laws would alle viate problems on which addition al legislation is being proposed. Agricultural interests are propos ing the restriction of imports of Danish cheese and Australian boneless beef. They are also pro posing price-support programs for dairy products and additional purchase programs for other prod ucts. An enlargement of the Soil 14 For one example and the conse quences, see D. Farney, "Cash Premium to Break up the Family," lVall Street Journal, November 30, 1967, p. 16.

15 "In the 1960's, women have headed about 23 per cent of all nonwhite families, compared to about 9 per cent of the white families." The number of nonwhite fam ilies with a female head rose by 47 per cent from 1950 to 1960 while nonwhite families with a husband or other male head rose by 20 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. Bureau of Labor Statistics, op. cit., PP. 36, 182.

1968 THE UNTRUTH OF THE OBVIOUS 339 Bank Program and other programs for taking land out of cultivation in order to reduce the magnitude of farm-produced surpluses is also being proposed. Instead of enact ing programs to take more land out of cultivation, why not repeal the reclama tion program and avoid putting more land into cul tivation if all this does is make it necessary to take more land out of cultivation? Previous Applications of Brozen's Second Law I should say that we have oc casionally recognized that the way to solve a problem is to repeal a law rather than enact another. In the late 1940's, we found that little research was being done to develop applications for synthetic rubber and little was being done to reduce the cost of synthetic fubber. It was proposed that Con gress should enact a law enlarg ing the government's synthetic rubber research. Another Con gressman proposed, instead, that the law monopolizing the owner ship of synthetic rubber facilities by the government be repealed.

The government ownership law was repealed and the Federal gov ernment sold its synthetic rubber plants in 1953. Private research on rubber promptly leaped to over $100,000,000 a year. After that occurred, the price of synthetic began declining, and its use began to broaden enormously.16 The same sort of action oc curred in the case of atomic en ergy. Complaints had grown to a vociferous level by 1954 that the billions being spent by the Atomic Energy Commission were not producing the hoped-for results in making nuclear energy an eco nomic industry. We had been promised that the power of the atom would be making deserts bloom by 1950, and there were no deserts in bloom. In 1954, we re pealed the law monopolizing atomic energy research for the government. Within a decade, three different companies each developed economic means for generating electricity with atomic fuels, although at the pace at which developments had been com ing before 1954 it did not appear that this would occur for at least three decades.

Perhaps the most famous in stance of a repeal of laws as a method of solving a problem is the repeal of the corn laws in Great Britain in the 1840's. Food prices were high and poverty widespread in Great Britain in the early nine teenth century. With the repeal of British corn laws (Le., their Hi R. Solo, "Research and Development in the Synthetic Rubber Industry," Quar terly Journal of Economics, February, 1954.

340 THE FREEMAN June tariffs), one of the most remark able rises in affluence that has ever occurred in world history took place in the following decades. Perhaps we ought to pick a few laws to start work on and form a league for their repeal. In Eng land, Richard Cobden and John Bright formed an anti-corn law league and managed the repeal of the laws within a few years. We might start to work, if you wish to start at the local level, on the repeal of city ordinances limiting the number of taxicabs. I find it a problem to obtain a taxi in most cities to which I go except Wash ington, the only major city which does not limit the number of cabs by ordinance. At the national level, the most important single law in need of repeal is the Fair Labor Standards Act. I gave its minimum wage provisions as much attention as I did because it is high on my list for priority action. A league to re peal the Fair Labor Standards Act could begin its work by edu cating people to the iniquitous effects of minimum wage rates.

These help to maintain segrega tion in plants. They cause severe unemployment among Negro teen agers. They block the education of those most in need of education. They force the movement of people from where they would like to live to where they do not like to live. They cause overcrowding of cities and the development of slums. They are a maj or cause of civiI commotion. They breed the rioters who have been burning our cities. These results should be enough to impeach any law. If we want seriously to work on our prob lems of slums, segregation, unem ployment, and riots, here is the place to begin. Don't pass an other law. Repeal this law. ~ • For a further discussion of the ways in which the good intentions of political planners tend to backfire, FREEMAN readers may wish to review Dr. Brozen's article in the September 1967 issue: "Rule by Markets vs. Rule by Men."