One of the fallacies we have adopted in our society is that some producsts/services are so special or some particular situations are so special that we should abandon free market principles and let government take over. We’re being suckers when we do this for several reasons. First, almost never is a product/service really that special. Economists look for “externalities” when discussing whether or not government might be able to address some weakness in the free market. If there is no externality there is no opportunity for government to help. What percentage of voters know what an externality is? (Externalities are not common enough to justify all the intervention that government and special interests desire to inflict on us so you don’t hear much about them.)
Second, it is a slippery slope. Every special interest thinks it is special and lobbies for some special interference that, surprise, surprise, happens to benefit their special interest a lot while it takes care of some special problem in the free market.
Third, thanks to rational ignorance, we will never study these issues enough to influence government towards interfering where it makes sense rather than interfering where it is just benefiting some special interest.
The result is an ugly free-for-all among special interests for the national treasury while the general public naively thinks, “I guess if the free market is not working then the government needs to step in.” Its a global robbery.
This book describes what would probably happen if we never said government can step in. Its extreme, but we should all be required to read it before we can vote. At least we would not be so knee jerk anti-free-market.
Click on the image of the book to purchase on Amazon. I’m an affiliate of Amazon so it helps support this blog.
