Rather than protecting our liberty, liberty is undercut at every turn by government. It does this primarily, not by stealing us or our children away in the night, nor by directly taking our every last cent. Government consolidates its power through the creation of cartels in all sectors of the economy. Think of money, banking, healthcare, education, the university system, food, etc…The list goes on and on. These sectors of the economy have been cordoned off via regulation, safe from the effects of free competition. Banking is completely immune to competition, this activity is controlled completely by those with cartel-creating power. The method by which government creates a cartel is through regulation. Regulation builds a wall around the industry in question, protecting the established players, and funneling customers to their services. When we make use of the healthcare sector, go to the bank, attend a university, etc., we are playing our part as customers of the cartel system. Through restrictive regulation, our ability to choose with whom to do business is greatly diminished. Governments cartelize the economy via regulation to restrict our choice of where to spend our money, and where we decide to work. It’s insidious because we never notice the choices that will never exist due to government regulation.
The choice isn’t between regulation versus deregulation, but what mechanism should regulate the economy? Should self-interested bureaucracy impose top-down regulation that restricts choice and benefits merely themselves and their comrades in the industry to be regulated? Or should the market be regulated by the free, individual choices of the millions of people who buy, sell, and speculate in the market on a minute-by-minute basis? Government fears the outcome of the latter, and will do anything to prevent it.
