{"id":26747,"date":"2017-10-12T07:18:08","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T12:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26747"},"modified":"2017-10-12T07:18:08","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T12:18:08","slug":"if-you-give-the-state-an-inch-it-will-take-a-mile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26747","title":{"rendered":"If You Give the State an Inch, It Will Take a Mile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If You Give the State an Inch, It Will Take a Mile<\/a><\/h3>\n
There’s No Such Thing as Neutral Intervention<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Humans are imperfect beings. Try as we may, each of us is subject to some degree of inconsistency in our own thought patterns. Even the greatest champions of liberty who have made invaluable contributions to the study of classical liberalism have fallen prey to error. And while these heroes and geniuses may come to an inconsistent conclusion every now and then, our admiration continues.<\/p>\n

Hayek wasn\u2019t infallible. And in chapter three of The Road to Serfdom<\/em>, he makes some arguments in favor of \u201charmless\u201d market intervention that call for scrutiny.<\/p>\n

No Such Thing as Harmless Regulation<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I made my way through chapter three, I did a doubletake after coming across this passage:<\/p>\n

To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this chapter, Hayek regularly uses the word \u201ccompetition\u201d to mean free market. He also asserts that \u201cplanning\u201d is, in and of itself, the enemy of competition. Hayek argues that not all state action qualifies as \u201cplanning\u201d and as an encroachment on \u201ccompetition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayek reasons that since these types of regulation do not interfere with the means of production themselves, it is fully compatible with free market capitalism. He has also argued that since these are \u201cblanket\u201d regulations\u2014no one can use these substances\u2014 and not individual regulations\u2014only this group can\u2019t use them\u2014they do not inhibit the market\u2019s ability to function freely. In Hayek\u2019s mind, for example, the state limiting the number of widgets you can produce is far more intrusive than outlawing certain harmful substances.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If You Give the State an Inch, It Will Take a Mile There’s No Such Thing as Neutral Intervention Humans are imperfect beings. Try as we may, each of us is subject to some degree of inconsistency in our own thought patterns. Even the greatest champions of liberty who have made invaluable contributions to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16454,244,11738,14991,3610,15040,1309],"class_list":["post-26747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-brittany-hunter","tag-economics-2","tag-f-a-hayek","tag-foundation-for-economic-education","tag-regulation","tag-road-to-serfdom","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26748,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26747\/revisions\/26748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}