Another quesiton with govt interference in economy...?

Question

In some states, dealers cannot open on Sundays. Is this interference justified according to economics viewpoint? YES or No and why.

There are restrictions on snowmobiles and motorized boat use in some areas like Wyoming's Yellowstone. Should govt do this according to economics viewpoint? yes or no and why???

Answer 1

The government's job is not economic. Restricting the government by paying attention only to economic factors is a big mistake.

Do we really want a police force that can be bribed? A mercenary military?

From a "return on investment" point of view, national parks, national wilderness areas, etc. make no sense at all. Should government just sell off all its land?

Should your next door neighbor be allowed to leave his trash all over his front lawn? build a tall building that completely fills his lot and dwarfs the surround houses? open a nightclub or a whorehouse, a prison or a dump, or a factory or a livestock operation?

There are people who would answer yes to these and similar questions, but they are comparatively few (and I don't believe they really mean it).

But if you answer "no" to any, then you have accept that the government has responsibilities other than purely economic, and so asking whether a particular act is justified solely on economic grounds is a deliberate distortion.

As for the notion of "government interference", what a joke! The U.S. GDP is on the order of $14 trillion. The federal government alone pays out around $3 trillion. That means the federal government is the single biggest player, not only in the U.S. economy, but in the world economy. ANYTHING it does affects the economy - ANYTHING.

The question isn't whether it has a choice about interfering, but how should it interfere.

Answer 2

From an economics stand point, governments should never prohibit people from doing those things which do not cause harm to another person's self or property. To reach this conclusion, we have to realize the aim to which every action is directed. The goal of all human action is to make oneself better off than before the action. Any time that someone is prevented from doing this, the economy of which that person is a member is harmed.

However, there is more. Where I live, those people who are most in favor of the prohibition of alchol sales on Sunday are the liquor stores themselves. They know that if some liquor stores are open on Sundays, they must also open to keep up with their competition. If people really want to buy booze on sundays, but are forced to wait until monday's, the liquor stores are open to serve them. However, if the ban is removed and one liquor store is open on sundays, then those who really want to buy booze on sunday will go to that open store instead of waiting until monday to go to his or her "regular" store.

The snowmobiles question is a little trickier. The problem is that the relevant iterference occurs way before the snowmobile interference occurs. The problem is that the government owns the parks. If private businesses owned the parks, they would allow or disallow vehciles such that their profit is maximized. To earn profit, the business must satisfy consumers. So, maximum profit means maximum consumer satisfaction.

When the government owns the resource, they do not care about the consumer. They are slaves to edicts sent down from on high. These edicts have nothing to do with consumer satisfaction, but rather the pleadings of various interest groups.