Today, I will recommend a free book, A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty, which can be downloaded here.
A few quotes from the book:
“Imagine you are sitting down to dinner one evening. You open a bottle of wine when there is a knock at the door. You open the door to find your neighbours standing outside. They tell you that they have decided that you must no longer drink alcohol. They confiscate your wine and tell you that if you drink again they will fine you and perhaps even imprison you.
Most people would consider such behaviour outrageous: what right do our neighbours have to tell us that we cannot drink alcohol? But this is exactly what happens when governments ban things, whether alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, or prostitution, gambling or boxing – things that are all banned in some countries.
Some people may say that bans by governments are reasonable if they result from a democratic vote, but such a vote is really nothing more than people’s neighbours telling them what they can Imagine you are sitting down to dinner one evening. You open a bottle of wine when there is a knock at the door. You open the door to find your neighbours standing outside. They tell you that they have decided that you must no longer drink alcohol. They confiscate your wine and tell you that if you drink again they will fine you and perhaps even imprison you.
Most people would consider such behaviour outrageous: what right do our neighbours have to tell us that we cannot drink alcohol? But this is exactly what happens when governments ban things, whether alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, or prostitution, gambling or boxing – things that are all banned in some countries.
Some people may say that bans by governments are reasonable if they result from a democratic vote, but such a vote is really nothing more than people’s neighbours telling them what they can and cannot do – just like in the example above.
Laws banning things are widespread: all over the world governments try to stop people from doing things that they want to do, even when those things do not harm other people. This chapter asks whether it is right that governments ban things and looks at the consequences that follow when governments introduce bans.” pp. 68-69
Elsewhere, the contributing authors point out that government-run industries are “open to ‘producer capture’ – when nationalised industries cater for the needs of their workers instead of their customers.” Good examples are government workers in education where output is not required and training is mistaken for skill.
It seems that coercion is associated, perhaps perfectly, with concentration on the producer. Producers are able to amass money for lobbying against un-coordinated consumers, usually the rest of us. For example, the G.M. rescue is a rescue of high-priced jobs.
Governments can deal with the same problems as the free market except for quality, availability, price and quantity.We can be assured that every government enterprise is flawed, but will last forever and only be change in the face of extreme political embarrassment. Market discipline puts an end to silly practices in the free market
Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
