|
|
|
|
|
|
the United States, and their counterparts in other Western countries. Succeeding chapters will deal in some detail with some of these activities, and a few have been discussed above, but it may help to give a sense of proportion about the role that a liberal would assign government simply to list, in closing this chapter, some activities currently undertaken by government in the U.S., that cannot, so far as I can see, validly be justified in terms of the principles outlined above: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. Parity price support programs for agriculture. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. Tariffs on imports or restrictions on exports, such as current oil import quotas, sugar quotas, etc. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. Governmental control of output, such as through the farm program, or through prorationing of oil as is done by the Texas Railroad Commission. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. Rent control, such as is still practiced in New York, or more general price and wage controls such as were imposed during and just after World War II. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
5. Legal minimum wage rates, or legal maximum prices, such as the legal maximum of zero on the rate of interest that can be paid on demand deposits by commercial banks, or the legally fixed maximum rates that can be paid on savings and time deposits. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6. Detailed regulation of industries, such as the regulation of transportation by the Interstate Commerce Commission. This had some justification on technical monopoly grounds when initially introduced for railroads; it has none now for any means of transport. Another example is detailed regulation of banking. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7. A similar example, but one which deserves special mention because of its implicit censorship and violation of free speech, is the control of radio and television by the Federal Communications Commission. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
8. Present social security programs, especially the old-age and retirement programs compelling people in effect (a) to spend a specified fraction of their income on the purchase of retirement annuity, (b) to buy the annuity from a publicly operated enterprise. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9. Licensure provisions in various cities and states which restrict particular enterprises or occupations or professions to people who have a license, where the license is more than a |
|
|
|
|
|