Re: Airport Wars Against Competition

Lew:  In my In Restraint of Trade book, I dealt with the business community’s lament about “unfair competition,” a sentiment that eventually worked its way into the New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act.  I suspect one would find the same business origins for the California “Unfair Competition Law.”  “Unfair Competition,” both years ago and today, really means “effective competition.” Those who, like these teenagers, offer a more attractive service in the rental of cars will be singled out and punished for the “wrongs” done to other businesses unable or unwilling to match their competitive imagination or vigor.  That this corporate-state attack on marketplace creativity is occurring in San Francisco – a center for “progressive” thinking – is illustrative of the mindset that is helping to bring down the culture.  I don’t suppose that Sens. Boxer or Feinstein will be chiming in on behalf of these young men. The preference for the marketplace shown by these young entrepreneurs – in lieu of a four-year period of conditioning at three of America’s most highly respected universities – may provide an image that institutionalized collectivism [whose interests these senators represent]  cannot withstand.  Perhaps these teenagers might provide the center-piece for the liberating cause: the “Separation of Economy and State.”

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12:32 pm on June 19, 2013