|
[http://www.aframnews.com/html/includes/left_nav_1.htm]
|
The Free Market Is the High Road
Nothing could raise our standard of living more than freeing the economy
from our meddling government. When people are able to live free of
government regulation, they prosper — goods become cheaper, standards of
living go up, and individual liberty is expanded.
Today, government regulates almost every aspect of our lives, including how
we educate our children, what we build on our land, how chicken is packaged,
how much gas our cars use, what we use for money, what we spray in our
gardens, what countries we visit, what we ingest, what we’re paid for our
work, how many and what kind of fish we can catch, where we protest, how
much money we give to politicians, sex, marriage, and just about every other
facet of life that should be no one’s business but our own.
This is costly, not only in terms of liberty but also in terms of
prosperity. Free markets maximize both. Succinctly put, regulated markets
are not efficient — they misdirect and waste resources by distorting the
price system. A rise in the price of a good tells both sellers and buyers
that, for whatever reason, conditions are different than they were before,
and that the good is now harder to obtain. When the government blocks this
process, buyers and sellers receive
distorted or even false information.
For instance, in the case of the gasoline shortages of the 1970s, consumers
were not receiving the market signal that gasoline had become harder to get
because the government had mandated a maximum price that could be charged
for gasoline. Thus, people demanded more gas than retailers were willing to
sell and the infamous long gas lines were the result.
This is exactly what happens when the government mandates a change in any
market — the intervention manipulates market prices and causes resources to
flow to less efficient users.
• Rent controls cause the construction of new rental units to decrease,
causing shortages of apartments and increased construction of luxury homes.
• Mandating more fuel-efficient cars raises the price of new automobiles,
pricing low-income people out of the market and keeping older cars on the
road longer.
• Imposing import quotas on sugar increases the price of sugar and any
product that contains sugar. Did you know that the American consumer pays
about double the world price for sugar because of government regulation?
A recent study by the Mercatus Center found that government regulation
costs the average household $8,000 per year. That is not chump change. Most
people would have a different outlook on the regulatory state if they were
given the stark choice between keeping their $8,000 and providing the 25
feet of shelf space that is required to hold the current Federal Register.
(See
http://vwww.mercatus.org/regulatorystudies/article.php?id=558&print=1
Though the financial benefits of ending regulation are enormous, they are
not the most important reason for freeing the economy. A free market is
superior to a regulated one because individual liberty is the only moral
foundation on which to base a society. If the government is going to
regulate the economy, it cannot do so without violating people’s rights. If
I am willing to work for a prospective employer for $2 per hour, that is my
right. The government has no authority to prevent me from doing so through a
mandatory minimum-wage law. If I wish to inject heroin into my veins, that
is my right. Even though it might not be good for me, it is morally wrong
for the government to stop me, for I am not violating anyone else’s rights
in the process. If I desire to build a golf course on the wetlands in my
backyard, it is my right as long as mutually agreed-upon covenants do not
prevent me from doing so.
This is the central idea on which our country was founded — that the purpose
of government is to protect, not regulate or destroy, the fundamental and
inherent rights of the people.
The individual would be left alone so long as he did not violate the rights
of others and, for the most part, that was the role of the federal
government for the first 100 years after the country’s founding. With the
tragic exception of slavery, the United States was a bastion of freedom in
that golden age, with the government overseeing very little of the private
lives of citizens. The result was an explosion of ideas and a creation of
wealth that the world had never seen before. It is that philosophy that we
have abandoned.
Government regulation is the result of the majority violating the rights of
the minority. This is nothing more than tyranny. The moral path is to let
people live in peace so long as they do not violate the rights of others.
This is the essence of a free-market society, it is the path to prosperity,
and it is the only honorable way to live with one another.
|
