Regulation

So which is more effective in keeping us—as customers and employees—safe: the government bureaucrat with no personal incentive, or the businessman, whose profits and reputation depend on the safety and satisfaction of his employees and customers?

Politicians and bureaucrats continue to push and implement the most infuriating and misguided regulations and policies they can dream up.

So-called “price gouging” is a gimmick used by politicians and the media to rally supporters and viewers.

How government regulation (controls) turned the COVID-19 health issue into a full-blown pandemic.

In normal times the government supports many bad, irresponsible, and unjust policies, driven in part by perverse incentives. Not the least of these is an imprudent eagerness to please special interests. Emergencies and the resulting panic only further loosen whatever weak restraints there normally are against government misbehavior and malfunction.

Freelance jobs are "feudalism," says California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. She persuaded California's legislature to pass a new law reclassifying freelance workers as employees. That means many people who hire them must now give them benefits like overtime,...

Licensing requirements generally restrict the supply of services in the licensed industry by prohibiting some perfectly competent workers from working as providers.

The government’s restricting Uber’s, its drivers’ and riders’ freedom of choice is immoral.

Byzantine state laws demand you get a state-approved license before you may become a hairdresser, tour guide, travel agent, house painter and all sorts of other jobs where customer happiness should be the guide.

Every excessive rule repealed is a step in the right direction: toward freedom.

The Founding Fathers, says Bargil, “recognized that the ability to fine is the ability to cripple. It’s one of the ways, other than incarceration, that government can really oppress.”

The lesson is that if you don’t want politicians destroying your business, you must go to Washington to give them money. Kiss their rings.

In our evaluation of the conflict between industrial greenhouse gas emitters and coastal property owners—as in all others—economics serves as a complement to considerations of justice. And the Coasean approach affords us a valuable one.

While it is too late to prevent the damage in Fort McMurray now, the solution to minimizing losses from fires in the future is to sell the government forests and let private owners manage them for long-term profitability—by protecting their own property and respecting the property rights of others (through good property management to reduce the fire hazard).

In free markets with a strong protection of individual rights by the government, competition weeds out bad products and bad companies.