11 Crazy Laws That Keep You From Getting A Job

Gee, I Wonder Why Unemployment Is So High

 

 

 

 

   The list at the link is just a small collection of ridiculously regulated trades that various state governments have instituted in the name of “protecting” the public , but which are really the result of lobbying efforts by private industry to protect/restrict their businesses , one example of which we highlight below . This is the power of government , picking winners and losers . Crony capitalism at work .

 

 

 

8. Makeup Artists

 

” Teaching someone how to put on makeup without a government permission slip is illegal in 36 states. Even worse, many of these states demand makeup artists get a cosmetologist or esthetician license, which covers many skills they don’t even use. For example, in Nevada, these entrepreneurs are forced to spend “700 hours in a classroom to learn about subjects that have nothing to do with makeup artistry, like how to cut hair, wax eyebrows and manicure nails.” The state’s restrictions are so strict they triggered a lawsuit.”

 

Read more about this protectionism in the guise of “public safety” at BuzzFeed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Morality Of Free Trade

Seven Moral Arguments For Free Trade

 

 

 

 

” Daniel Griswold argues that free trade is not only more efficient than protectionism but also more moral.”

 

 

” One: Free Trade Respects Individual Dignity and Sovereignty

  A man or woman engaged in honest work has a basic right to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor. It is a violation of my right to property for the government to forbid me to exchange what I produce for something produced by a fellow human being, whether the person I’m trading with lives across town or across the ocean.

  Protectionism is a form of stealing, a violation of the Eighth Commandment and other prohibitions against theft. It takes from one group of people, usually a broad cross section of consumers, and gives the spoils to a small group of producers whose only claim to the money is that they would be worse off under open competition.

  Free trade meets the most elementary test of justice, giving to each person sovereign control over that which is his own. As Frederic Bastiat wrote in his 1849 essay, “Protectionism and Communism”:

  Every citizen who has produced or acquired a product should have the option of applying it immediately to his own use or of transferring it to whoever on the face of the earth agrees to give him in exchange the object of his desires. To deprive him of this option when he has committed no act contrary to public order and good morals, and solely to satisfy the convenience of another citizen, is to legitimize an act of plunder and to violate the law of justice.”

 

 

    Read the whole thing . The essay dates from 2001 but that does nothing to diminish the validity of Mr Griswold’s argument . On the contrary , the intervening years of State growth and the corresponding inflation , depression and recession demonstrate more than words how the morality of the free market far surpasses that of the coercive State .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Milton Friedman – Free Trade Vs Protectionism