Paying more for the wrong result


An essay shows why government action will cost freedom
Brad Edmonds talks about unintended consequences and perverse incentives.

Every government law and every government program provides perverse incentives for behavior among the governed. Often, the effect is to motivate behavior that is precisely the opposite of what the law was intended to generate. Here are just a few examples:

The environment: The EPA and its wetland policies decree that virtually any place where migrating waterfowl decide to break for a snack suddenly becomes by definition a "wetland," and must be protected from development by greedy investors and builders. What this has come to mean in practice is that a farm owner loses the use of part of his property by the hand of government if, after an unusually wet season, a small pond forms in his field. And your uncle, who bought some beachfront property in northern California in the 1980s, hoping to retire there, may not be allowed to build a home on it if someone discovers an endangered mouse living in the area. Nor can he sell it, now that no owner will be free to use it for anything.

These things have happened, and landowners have taken notice.

The result: Property owners, upon seeing any evidence that part of their property is beginning to look like a "wetland," now destroy that evidence. One common activity is cutting or burning any cattails that spring up, so the area doesn’t look like a wetland (I’ve seen this). Landowners are also improving drainage to prevent water collection and subsequent government theft of their property rights. So now, the EPA gets the opposite of what it wanted, in that not only are there fewer places for migrating fowl to stop for a snack, but there is greater likelihood, not lesser, of the extinction of plant species associated with wetlands. Further, imagine what you and I would do, as property owners, if migrating waterfowl landed in our cornfields: We’d kill and eat them right away, lest they be discovered. You will never get what you expect when you take property rights from people who have justly acquired them.

This helps illustrate why government action hurts the economy and threatens freedom. No matter how good an idea is, very few things are worth the cost in freedom that results from regulation.

The rest of the article is worth your time too, if just to show that it is ALL government action, not just one department.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - February 24, 2006 at 05:07 AM  Tag


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