The Problem With Anti-Empiricism

Matt Yglesias argues that

if dental hygenists were allowed to work on their own, not only would this be good for hygenists (a lower-wage and female-dominated profession, and thus a progressive thing to do) it would almost certainly make it cheaper and/or more convenient to get your teeth cleaned.

A few facts, Alaskan d.h.s make 96k per year, those Washington state make 90k, d.h.s in Michigan, with the "highest concentration" of d.h.s in the land, make 59k. Nice wages, I would say.


We have an imaginary problem, low paid women enslaved by the evil dental monopoly, to which he offers the neo-Liberal solution of deregulation and increased competition because increased competition  will

Mak[e access to dental services] as cheap and convenient as possible for people to avoid [dental diseases, which] does a lot to raise living standards. Obviously in part that can be read as a good reason to pay for poor people’s dental bills. But at the end of the day, making these services affordable really does require us to find ways to make delivery cheaper.

According to the neo-Liberal tooth fairy you increase competition and decrease cost because this increases wages or shorter: more equals less which than equals more. This kind of argument makes clear why Yglesias hates empiricism; his ideology only works if you get to make stuff up.

Oh, and yes it does read as good reason to pay for poor peoples' dental bills not, however, via neo-Liberal tooth fairyism but rather by expanding health care through increasing wages by strengthening unions or mandating living wages, the nationalization of health care or other related progressive response to the needs of humanity in the social situation.