Free to Choose

October 11, 2006

Over at Econlog, Bryan Caplan wants to know, what would you like to be free to choose?

Aside from the overwhelming amount of responses along the lines of: “I wanna be able to do a ‘J’ whenever I want”, I’d like to see what people really want.

Caplan’s only caveat was, you can’t say that you “don’t want to pay taxes.”

For the record: I’d like a lot of things. Exemption from all “social contracts” of which I’m a part, only by power of attorney or guardian. For instance: Social Security. I know this is dangerously close to Caplan’s exception.

I’d also like to be able to buy goods from abroad without having to navigate (or pay other people to navigate) the 2,820 pages (2nd revision) of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule.

Can you imagine how much more crap you could buy, if you didn’t have to pay a 130% tariff on imported steel? How much money would you have saved, on everything you buy that requires steel as a factor of production: Cars, Houses, children’s toys, sewing equipment, construction equipment, refrigerators, etc.

Lots. Lots and lots of money.

You would’ve spent it on other things you valued, or you would’ve saved it for the future.

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What do you want to be free to choose?


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