The state loves to regulate the market. They often couch their regulations in words like “efficiency,” “savings,” and “choice,” but the fact is that all their regulations can do is impede the efficiency of the market, force savings where consumers want better solutions, and eliminate choices.
First case in point: CAFE standards. They started out cloaked in a mantle of reasonability. All they wanted was to provide a tiny nudge toward more fuel-efficient vehicles. All they wanted was an average MPG of 27 or so for cars, and 22 or so for trucks. Seems achievable, right? But the mandated average kept rising–faster than improvements to efficiency could keep up! Oh, and don’t forget the ever-tightening safety standards pulling in the opposite direction: heavier, clunkier cars with more mandated hardware!
Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration raised the mandate to 58 miles per gallon in 2032, a value not even reached by the Prius!
What does this do? It effectively outlaws larger vehicles, which has a huge effect on people’s lives and livelihoods. It relegates shipping and trucking to a special caste, and pulls things like towing an RV further out of reach of the common man. It’s another regulation that pushes us further toward 15-minute cities and a return to unaffordable travel. It’s neo-feudalism.
Republicans naively support regulations when they’re not “too crazy,” but once the camel’s nose is under the tent, there’s no limit to how crazy they can get once Congress is out of the loop and bureaucracies staffed by insane, unaccountable busybodies take the wheel.
Anti-trust has much the same effect. Choices are removed because some paper-pusher doesn’t like some company. It doesn’t matter if the numbers make any sense. They often don’t. They’ll twist words and facts to exercise their powers because of the rush it gives them, consumers be damned.
Mises clearly showed that the market economy serves consumers best. State regulation only serves the sadistic regulators’ bizarre fetishes. These regulatory bodies want people to be helpless, stranded, and dependent.
So, what’s the solution? There are a few things you can do, aside from protest and try to elect better politicians.
To deal with CAFE standards, learn to maintain older cars. The longer the existing cars stay on the road, the harder it is to justify sweeping regulations on new ones.
Use gray markets and second-hand markets to deal in new old stock goods.
Support businesses that are innovating in new ways to sidestep stupid regulations.
And, of course, call out this insanity whenever and wherever you can, as loudly as you are able.