Yes, Government IS Like These Signs

In a recent post, Art asks rhetorically whether government is like these signs:

As Murray Rothbard masterfully explains in these old lectures, government policy is at war with itself:

4. Price Controls in the Oil Industry

The disappearance of oil has been forecast every decade. Prices were overlooked. When the price is high it is more profitable to look for oil. Total reserves on

Mises InstituteMurray N. Rothbard

5. Minimum Price Controls

Thou shalt not sell a certain product or service below a certain price, e.g. wheat, cotton, corn, cheese, sugar. This will result in an artificial unsold

Mises InstituteMurray N. Rothbard

6. Government Licensing of Industry and Minimum Wage

The peanut butter crunch was in 1980. Crop acreage and production was cut down by 45% by government price support, import quotas, and cartelizing of the

Mises InstituteMurray N. Rothbard

We can make sense of individual policies by thinking carefully about the cui bono question–"who benefits?"

But trying to make sense of the totality of public policy, trying to detect within in it an overarching global "teleology" is a fool's errand. The tens of thousands of pages which comprise the federal register are a dog's breakfast of policies at war with themselves. As many economists have been pointing out, a major problem with the U.S. economy is that policy "subsidizes demand and constricts supply."

Public policy castrates and bids the geldings be fruitful.