Category Archives: Regulation

Is Trump Against the Administrative State or For It?

“Trump Ratchets Up Threats on the Media” reads a New York Times headline this morning. It refers to Trump’s suggestion that CBS should lose its broadcasting license over its editing of an answer Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris gave to a question during her recent 60 Minutes interview.

During the interview, Harris was asked pointedly whether the U.S. government has any sway over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu given the massive financial support it has given him in fighting Hamas. Based upon footage 60 Minutes released to Face the Nation, Harris responded with one of her signature word salads that failed to answer the question. However, what aired on the 60 Minutes broadcast was a succinct, one sentence answer that also failed to answer the question or really mean anything at all, but which made Harris appear less like the babbling nonentity her detractors say she is.

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Whether the edit was intended to help Harris or not is anyone’s guess. Of course, CBS denies its edit was misleading or so intended. And while Trump’s general complaint that the media treat him and his campaign with a completely different standard than they do Harris and hers, the 60 Minutes interview of Harris did not come off that way at all. Interviewer Bill Whitaker asked Harris challenging questions and pressed her with follow-up questions when her answers were unclear.

While Trump and his supporters have every reason to suspect there may be footage even more damaging to Harris than what was aired on the 60 Minutes broadcast, the interview was nevertheless a train wreck for Harris. The real question here isn’t whether CBS violated FCC regulations and should therefore lose its broadcasting license. It is, “Why is there a five-member board of bureaucrats who can make this decision at all?”

Trump and his surrogates have said things encouraging to libertarians and terrifying to the media about their supposed intention to dismantle the administrative state. In a video speech, he Trump promised to “dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption.”

Those words in a vacuum would suggest he had a plan to undo the unconstitutional transfer of legislative power from Congress to the executive, born in the early Progressive Era and institutionalized by the New Deal, as well as reclaim executive power also usurped by federal agencies. However, what follows during the speech significantly waters down the promise of its opening statement.

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

A Tik Tok ban is the epitome of China hysteria

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Well, Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) agree on one thing: Congress shouldn’t pass a bill banning Tik Tok from operation within the United States under current ownership.

MTG said she opposes the bill on First Amendment grounds, citing her own ban from Twitter (Now “X”) under its previous ownership and subsequent restoration of her account once Elon Musk acquired the platform. She correctly noted that such a bill could set a precedent for a similar ban or forced sale of X, the freest of the major social media platforms and friendliest to MAGA Republicans.

MAGA jefe and current frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump, has also publicly opposed the ban despite his own call for such a bill while president.

For her part, AOC said it “just doesn’t feel right to me.” As much as we need less feelings and more reason contributing to legislative decisions, we’ll take the win on feelz this time.

Whatever the motivations of the various players, it is refreshing to see at least this minor check on the full blown China hysteria that pervades most of the political spectrum in the U.S. As China has now become a rival world power, the D.C. empire has preyed upon all of its subjects’ worst instincts to drum up fear of all things China.

The most irrational of these is “the CCP obtaining your data.” CCP stands for Chinese Communist Party, a moniker at least as inappropriate as that of the very nationalist “Federalist Party” of 1790s America. China is an authoritarian country but no longer a communist one. As I’ve been saying for many years, the only reason China has become an economic power is because it has largely abandoned communism and embraced a market economy.

I’m old enough to remember what things were like when China was communist. When I was a child and didn’t want to “clean my plate,” i.e., finish whatever I had been served for dinner, my mother would say, “Don’t waste food; there are people starving in China.” I never agreed with the logic of this statement (how is my eating more going to help them?) but it certainly rested upon a correct premise. People were starving in China by the millions. That is the eventual end in all communist countries.

The Chinese aren’t starving anymore. The transformation didn’t take long, either. Once the decision was made to transition to a market economy, China became one of the largest economies in the world in just a few decades. As Fred Reed wrote, “the Chinese are a commercial people.” It only took the political will to abandon communism to free those commercial instincts.

This is not to say China has a laissez faire free market economy. Neither does the United States. Both countries operate market economies with massive government intervention. Which country intervenes more? That’s hard to say at this point. The U.S. has seen economic freedom greatly decline over the past several decades. China has seen economic freedom greatly increase, albeit with some pullback under current President Xi. Which one is economically freer at the moment? It probably depends upon your measuring stick.

This is all important to understanding the proposed Tik Tok ban. The legislators promoting it correctly point out that Americans having accounts on the platform are allowing their data to be mined. That data, they say, eventually ends up in the hands of the Chinese government. That’s probably also true.

So, what?

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupidand Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Capitalists are terrible for capitalism

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U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by Senior Advisor Jared Kushner (standing, L-R), Vice President Mike Pence and Staff Secretary Rob Porter welcomes reporters into the Oval Office for him to sign his first executive orders at the White House in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, the familiar notion that a successful businessman would “run the government like a business” reemerged. We’ve heard this whenever a successful entrepreneur, usually a Republican, has run for president. Of course, the government cannot be run like a business for reasons I provided in 2012 when Mitt Romney was the latest candidate who would purportedly do so.

In short, the private marketplace runs on voluntary exchanges while the government runs on force. Success in the former does not prepare one for success in the latter. It may even make one less prepared for the intrigues of politics, as Donald Trump, Jr. seemed to be saying in his recent interview of Matt Taibbi.

But free market proponents often make the further mistake of assuming that a successful business owner will at least be prone to pro-free market policies. After all, who knows better the blessings of capitalism than a capitalist himself or herself?

This is also mistaken. While running their businesses in the marketplace, successful entrepreneurs are a great boon to society. But when it comes to policy, capitalists are terrible for capitalism. Among history’s most successful capitalists this has virtually always been true.

For the entire history of commerce, business owners have sought the aid of government power to limit or eliminate competition. In 1807, long before the Progressive Era, the New York State legislature granted Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, a 30-year monopoly on steamboat traffic in the state of New York. As Thomas DiLorenzo writes in How Capitalism Saved America, this allowed Fulton to charge exorbitantly high prices until Cornelius Vanderbilt defied the legal monopoly and undercut him.

The Progressive Era itself was a bonanza of crony capitalism. The popular myth about this period has so-called “robber barons” forming monopolies and exploiting customer and employee alike until progressives like Teddy Roosevelt came along to save the day with heavy government regulation.

As Murray Rothbard proved beyond any reasonable doubt, literally no element of this popular myth is true. In fact, it is the opposite of the truth. It is true that hugely successful business owners like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan attempted to form monopolies over various sectors of the economy. However, every attempt to do so without the government’s help ended in failure.

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Tom Mullen is the author of It’s the Fed, Stupid and Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Response to Elie Mystal’s ‘Libertarian Hero Meets The Justice Of The Streets (Err.. Suburbs)’

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Rand_Paul,_official_portrait,_112th_Congress_alternate I read Elie Mystal’s article on Rand Paul’s assault, which suggests such violent encounters are the inevitable result of libertarianism in practice. He makes two errors. First, he contends Rand Paul ignores the rules of his HOA based on his libertarian philosophy. Second, he contends basing a legal framework on the libertarian non-aggression principle (NAP) is unworkable.

Regarding the first error, libertarianism is based on the sanctity of voluntary contracts. An HOA is a perfect example of what libertarians would replace zoning regulations with – an enforceable contract voluntarily entered into by every individual, instead of a set of rules imposed on the whole by a supposed majority. Mystal conflates voluntary contracts with regulations near the end of his piece, writing, “Rand Paul’s broken ribs are a goddamn case study in why we need regulations.” This begs the question, “Why do we need regulations, rather than just enforcement of the HOA?”

Neither Mystal nor I know the terms of Rand Paul’s HOA contract, but if they prohibit either pumpkin patches or compost heaps, then Rand Paul appears to be in violation of that contract. Libertarians would side with the HOA, not Rand Paul. However, the HOA contract also provides penalties for violation of the terms, which I’m fairly certain don’t include bum-rushing him and breaking his ribs.

This all assumes there is any truth to reports Senator Paul used his property in ways his neighbors found offensive, whether compliant with the letter of his HOA agreement or not. Several of his neighbors have come forward since Mystal’s piece was written to refute those reports.

Even in the absence of a written agreement, libertarians recognize longstanding local conditions as binding on new property owners. Thus, I cannot come into a quiet community and build an airport on my land, subjecting my neighbors to the noise and other inconveniences of having an airport border their land. By the same token, I cannot buy the land next to an existing airport and then demand the airport stop making noise or doing the other things an airport must do to conduct its business. This principle extends to all sorts of questions, including air pollution, zoning, etc. Murray Rothbard wrote about this concept many times. Here is an example.

Second, Mystal’s article includes this passage:

“You can do what you want and I can do what I want and, so long as we’re not hurting anybody, the government can do nothing.” It’s… cute, as theories of social interactions go. It’s not a workable basis for law and governance.”

I would refer the writer to this passage from Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural address:

“With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. [emphasis added]

In fact, Jefferson reiterated the NAP as the basis for law and governance many times over the course of his life. Examples include this, this and this.

Rather than a “cute theory of social interaction,” the NAP was the guiding principle of American liberty for well over a century, until Woodrow Wilson specifically called it out as no longer adequate for what he considered too complex a society for the NAP to govern. Libertarians disagree with Wilson. Mystal may not. But it would be a much more valuable discussion if libertarianism would at least be represented correctly when criticized, rather than presented in the cartoonish fashion our sound bite media so often resorts to.

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

New York Times already pushing Hillary Clinton’s Internet Regulation Plans

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Hillary Clinton hasn’t even won the general election yet, but the New York Times is already pushing her legislative agenda. And while she is likely to meet stiff resistance on headline issues like immigration and health care, regulating the internet is one even her Republican adversaries might work with her on. As Repubican Sen. Marco Rubio warned, the sword cuts both ways.

“Adolescent suicide as likely as death in traffic accident,” reads the headline of the article, which goes on to describe “an accumulating body of evidence that young adolescents are suffering from a range of health problems associated with the country’s rapidly changing culture.” And just what are some of the elements of the culture that have changed in the past two decades?

Is it the huge increase in prescription of behavioral drugs, which all list “suicidal thoughts” among their side effects?

Could it be the trend towards locking up children in those juvenile detention centers called “schools” at earlier and earlier ages and loading them up with homework for the few hours of leisure time left when they get out?

The pressure of government-mandated tests?

No, neither the Times’ Sabrina Tavernise nor the CDC researchers she cites appear to have been curious about any of these likely causes. For them, it’s all because of social media.

“The pervasiveness of social networking means that entire schools can witness someone’s shame, instead of a gaggle of girls on a school bus. And with continual access to such networks, those pressures so not end when a child comes home in the afternoon,” writes Tavernise.

With the plethora of human activity Hillary Clinton aims to tax and regulate, one might not be aware of her plans for the internet in general and social media in particular. Bullet point three on her five point plan to “Created Safer Schools for our Kids” reads:

“Make the Internet a safer space for kids by addressing cyberbullying. While the Internet is essential to helping students learn and communicate, cyberbullying has become a harmful extension of bullying in the classroom. The ease with which demeaning and damaging content can be posted on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter make it difficult for our kids to ever really escape bullying. We need to invest in innovative solutions that allow students, parents, educators, and other adults to make the Internet safer, while respecting First Amendment rights.”

Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, that the New York Times ran a story suggesting a rise in teenage suicides might be caused by something Hillary Clinton plans to regulate? And if you believe that, I have a…

The assault on freedom in the village always starts with the children. It doesn’t take much imagination to anticipate what’s next. First, social media must be regulated to “save the children,” followed by the internet in general to curb the dissemination of false information that “degrades our national conversation.” Or something. Because established media like NBC never disseminates anything blatantly false, right?

So, who benefits from the proposed regulation? For starters, The New York Times and other traditional media benefit. The more their competition is regulated, the less of it there is and the less those competitors can differentiate their content from that offered by traditional media. Limiting competition helps stop the kind of bleeding the Times reported last month while trying to compete with an unregulated, diverse media marketplace.

Government itself benefits, by decreasing the scrutiny unregulated internet freedom subjects it to. President Obama didn’t lament the “wild west media” because he’s concerned about journalistic standards. He did so because for every wild conspiracy theory posted somewhere on the internet, there’s likely three accurate stories on government misdeeds that would otherwise go unreported.

Let’s not forget established social media companies like Facebook themselves. Even if they feign opposition to the initial regulatory proposals that come out, companies like Facebook will eventually embrace and likely help write the regulations that will limit their own activities. Why? Because other existing social media aren’t their most dangerous competition.

Tomorrow’s start-up poses the greatest danger to any established business and for every new regulation, the cost of starting a new business increases. When the cost to launch a start-up goes up, the number of start-ups launched goes down. The established players with existing market share can absorb the cost of increased regulation into their operating expenses. But the company that might have disrupted the whole industry may not be launched at all, if entry costs due to regulation rise high enough.

See how that works?

This is by no means unique to social media or the internet. This is the real story behind the entire regulatory state. When you research the true history of virtually all regulation, whether historically significant like the Sherman Anti-Trust or Wagner Acts or the ones that regulate your light bulbs or toilet bowls, the players and their motivations are virtually always the same.

Unsuspecting citizens generally believe well-intentioned politicians write regulations to protect consumers, especially poor ones, from unsafe products or unfair treatment. In reality, corrupt politicians write regulations to protect special interests, usually wealthy ones, from completely fair competition. And when they can invoke the safety of the children, it always works.

Another Voice: We don’t need a federal law limiting ticket ‘bots’

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schumer Paul McCartney scheduled a visit to Buffalo for the first time in his legendary career. I am a lifelong fan who had mouse poised at the precise moment tickets went on sale. I did not get a ticket. “Scalper bots” had apparently bought them faster than virtually anyone else could click on a seat. I was disappointed.

But I’m even more disappointed to hear there is support for a federal law prohibiting these kinds of programs. Under the guise of protecting the environment (but really just more crony capitalist scams), we already have the federal government telling us what light bulbs we may use and how much water our toilets are allowed to flush. We don’t need a law telling us how to buy and sell tickets to a rock concert.

The first and foremost reason is principle. Concert tickets are private property. They belong to the promoters of the concert, who have a right to sell 100 percent of them to customers using purchasing software. They also have a right to develop software to prevent bots from buying their tickets. The government’s role in exchanges of property is to ensure these property rights are secure, not to violate them as this bill proposes to do for the convenience of those who seem to believe someone owes them a concert ticket.

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Even libertarians wrong on Monsanto Protection Act

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TAMPA, April 3, 2013 ― While the high priests in black robes were hearing arguments on gay marriage, President Obama quietly signed the continuing resolutions act that keeps the federal government operating in the absence of a budget. Buried inside the bill was language that has become notoriously known as “the Monsanto Protection Act.” The blogosphere exploded with cries of conspiracy, crony capitalism and corruption.

Liberals oppose the provision for the usual reasons: It lets a big corporation “run wild” without appropriate government oversight, free to (gasp!) make bigger profits on food. More thoughtful liberal arguments have suggested it may threaten the separation of powers by allowing the executive branch to override a decision by the judicial.

The lunatic fringe believes that Monsanto will control the world’s food supply through intellectual property laws and enslave us all, like the evil corporation did with oxygen in Total Recall. Of course, let’s not forget that old saying. “Just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.”

The liberal reaction to this bill and Monsanto’s activities in general is not surprising. It’s the libertarian reaction that’s surprising and disappointing. Even the Ron Paul crowd sounds like New Deal Democrats when it comes to this corporate farming giant.

They say that regardless of how much he supports the free market, everyone has that one issue that he is hopelessly socialist on. For some, it’s roads and so-called “infrastructure.” For others, it’s intellectual property. For Thomas Jefferson, it was education. Apparently, for libertarians it’s farming.

Now, if libertarians want to argue that corporations shouldn’t exist at all, that the privilege of limited liability violates individual rights and leads to market distortions, that regulating the markets only insulates large corporations from competition, that’s one thing. I’ve been there, written that.

But that’s not what libertarians are suggesting. Believe it or not, even supporters of Ron Paul are suggesting that new government regulations be passed requiring Monsanto to label its packaging to indicate whether there are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) among the contents. This is as unlibertarian as it gets.

There are legitimate concerns about whether GMOs represent a danger to the public. Certainly, each person has a right to refuse to consume them, but they don’t have a right to force Monsanto’s shareholders to label their own property. Neither do they have a right to interfere with consumers who voluntarily purchase that property from Monsanto without a label on it.

The libertarian answer is for those concerned about GMOs to refuse to purchase food that is not labeled to their satisfaction. The market already provides those alternatives. There is no substantive difference between the possible safety risks in Monsanto’s GMO food and those inherent in any other technology that legitimizes government regulation of voluntary activity. Either libertarians believe in the market or they don’t.

We’ve been told that the “Monsanto Protection Act” allows the executive branch to set aside court rulings, with the implication that the president or his Secretary of Agriculture can allow growers like Monsanto to keep growing and selling a particular product even after a judge orders them to stop. We’re led to believe that this would apply in a scenario where GMOs have been ruled to have caused death or illness and a court has ordered the grower to cease and desist to protect the public. But that’s not what the language says.

“SEC. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements …”

Section 411 of the Plant Protection Act deals with the regulation of “plant pests,” which are widely defined in the bill to include protozoans, bacteria, fungi, animals, and generic categories like “infectious agent or other pathogen.”

So, what are we really talking about here? A court case to determine if a regulation that shouldn’t even exist can be used to disrupt the otherwise legal operations of a company whose product has been identified by someone as a “plant pest.” Who would bring such a charge? Most likely a competitor or a left wing group that opposes and seeks to disrupt all for-profit activity. It’s Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act all over again.

Libertarians are usually good at separating their opposition to crony capitalism from their support of the free market. That’s why you’ll find them attacking large corporations one day and defending them the next.

That means that when corporations use the government for illegitimate advantages, as Monsanto has in seeking intellectual property rights in its GMOs, the libertarian response is to oppose intellectual property rights. It is not to empower the government to further regulate the market and violate property rights. If it is, then why was FDR and the New Deal wrong?

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

The Newtown tragedy should not prompt a “national discussion”

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TAMPA, Fl, December 26, 2012 ― Perhaps 21^st century Americans are not worthy of liberty. Reason is a prequalification of liberty, and Americans don’t demonstrate the ability to exercise it at all, at least not in a political context. It may be time to admit that a century of “progressive” education has transformed Americans into a herd of dependent, unthinking sheep.

Any person capable of even the most elementary reasoning would immediately conclude that not only shouldn’t the Newtown tragedy prompt a national discussion, but that there is no such thing as a “national discussion” in the first place.

Do Americans really believe that the 300 million people occupying this nation are actually participating in a discussion?

During the Republican primaries, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich often referred to “having a conversation with the country.” I assumed that I was not alone in rolling my eyes. Any lucid person would assume that Gingrich was either delusional, insincere or both to even suggest that any “conversation” he could participate in actually involved the wishes or interests of every individual in the country.

If most Americans believe there is a “national conversation” going on about guns, a reason to have one or even the possibility that one could be had, we’re in deep trouble. This is all just a well-orchestrated show to herd Americans to a place where they will accept being disarmed without raising too much fuss.

The debate is already framed. “Something must be done.” Now “we’re” just bickering about what that will be.

Think for a moment how idiotic this is. It is suggested that we pass a law that affects 300 million people because of the actions of a solitary lunatic. It’s happened before? So what? You could fit every person that has committed a similar crime during the past fifty years into the kitchen of a Greenwich Village apartment. Somehow we’re to believe that the actions of these few have some relevance to the rights of hundreds of millions.

The math doesn’t work.

Yet, this is only a secondary and utilitarian argument for rejecting gun control. The most important is that keeping and bearing whatever arms one wishes is a right, not a privilege. It is not granted by the 2^nd Amendment. That amendment merely attempts to ensure that the right it refers to is not violated by the government.

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Michigan unions say no right to work

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TAMPA, December 10, 2012 – Lansing, Michigan is bracing for an onslaught of protestors following Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s indication that he would sign “Right to Work” legislation currently making its way through the state legislature. President Obama and Harry Reid have both joined Michigan Democrats in denouncing the bill.

As usual, both liberals and conservatives are already demonstrating their skewed perception of reality in weighing in on this debate. President Obama told workers at an engine plant outside Detroit that “what we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages,” as if the law would do any such thing.

However, Harry Reid surpassed all in obtuseness when he called the legislation a “blatant attempt by Michigan Republicans to assault the collective bargaining process and undermine the standard of living it has helped foster.”

Perhaps the senator should ask the residents of Detroit, an entire city laid waste by New Deal union legislation, how they are enjoying the standard of living it has produced.

Libertarians haven’t been able to say this in quite a while, but the conservatives are mostly right on this one, although perhaps for the wrong reasons.

The only troubling sentiment coming from grassroots conservatives is the animosity towards labor unions themselves. Many seem to believe that the mere existence of labor unions causes economic distortions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Labor unions themselves are not the problem.

Like virtually all human misery, labor market distortions are caused by the government. Specifically in this case, they are rooted in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (a.k.a. the Wagner Act).

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Libertarians are not corporate apologists

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TAMPA, October 22, 2012 – In the wake of Ron Paul’s campaign and with Gary Johnson rising in the polls, libertarianism may just get a hearing for the first time in decades.

Already, the usual fallacies have resurfaced. If you don’t want the government to run education, you must be against education. If you don’t want the government to run healthcare, you must not want people to get healthcare.

This misunderstanding is often summed up with comments like, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with an ‘every man for himself’ society.” This springs from the absurd assumption that human beings never confer benefits upon one another except when forced to do so at gunpoint.

One corollary of the “every man for himself” theory is that a libertarian society would “let corporations run wild,” resulting in a small, wealthy elite controlling all of the resources and exercising oligarchical rule over the rest of society. (So do we live in a libertarian society now?)

Most people would probably be surprised at the libertarian stand on corporations. In a libertarian society, they wouldn’t exist. Corporations are creatures of the state. They are created by the government and endowed with privileges that individuals do not have. This contradicts a fundamental premise of libertarianism, that all people are created equal and have equal rights.

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