In an article headlined I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People that recently made the rounds on social media, Huffington Post contributor Kayla Chadwick basically asserted that anybody who opposes her progressive policy preferences simply doesn’t care about people.

“I cannot have political debates with these people. Our disagreement is not merely political, but a fundamental divide on what it means to live in a society, how to be a good person, and why any of that matters.”

Apparently, it never occurred to Chadwick that people might oppose these government policies because they suck.

In many cases, economic realities bulldoze the good intentions that drive government programs, regulations and dictates. But when you try to talk to many people about economics, their eyes glaze over and they hit you with the “there’s more to life than money,” retort.

By saying this, they imagine they seize some kind of moral high ground. While you only care about crass economic outcomes, they care about people. They desire to help. They look beyond cold, heartless economics and see human need. On the other hand, you are pretty much a calculating, unfeeling jerk.

This is absurd. It’s basically just like saying “There’s more to life than physics.”

Look. You can try to wish away or simply ignore gravity all you want, but if you jump off a high building, you will splat on the ground. In the same sense, you ignore basic economic principles to your own peril. Minimum wage laws, government control and allocation of resources, tax policies, government regulatory schemes and manipulation of the money supply all have predictable negative consequences.

Economics helps us understand the impacts of these policies. To simply ignore economic outcomes and press ahead with policies because they offer some moral satisfaction is foolish. You may feel like you’re helping. You may actually believe you’re helping. You may find pleasure in telling people you’re helping.

But you’re  not helping.

You can’t ignore physics. You can’t ignore chemistry. You can’t ignore biology. And you can’t ignore basic economic principles. These things all operate whether we take them into account or not. For instance, substantially raising the minimum wage will reduce the demand for low-skilled labor. You can’t wish that fact away.

Chadwick’s policies will actually harm people, often the very people she wants to helps. The fact that she cares doesn’t change that. On the other hand, just because a person opposes a policy allegedly meant to help doesn’t mean that person doesn’t care about others. In truth, the fact that they do care, and understand economics, may well drive their opposition.

Economist Murray Rothbard took a dim view of people like Chadwick who pontificate on economic policies with zero understanding of economics.

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

I see a lot of this kind of irresponsibility in the world today. And sadly, the crappy government policies these people push harm a great many people.