Laissez-Faire

You know the Renaissance Faire. You know about Playing Fair. But what about Laissez Faire?

Yeah. Different thing.

French term for uh, more or less a Beatles song: Let it Be. As it applies to economics, “let it be” means that the economy is smarter than we are, or at least a better arbiter of what works, what doesn’t, and what is...fair-ish.

So the ideology of laissez faire argues that economic forces should be allowed to work themselves with maximum freedom and minimal government interference. Part of the logic is purely economic—government involvement is friction. Bureaucrats who insert their noses only serve to hit the brakes on the economy and make transactions more expensive by applying taxes.

Ever been to the DMV and gotten the angry stare from the woman whose facebook page updating you’ve just interrupted, while hoping to get your license renewed?

Yeah. That’s big government at work. Friction. Not exactly America’s best and brightest. But part of the argument is also ethical.

Laissez faire advocates argue that government interference distorts the natural and equitable forces of economic development.

Think: global warming for economics, courtesy of our carbon pollutions, otherwise known as regulatory friction, slowing down the natural forces of the commercial markets.

In the heydey of laissez faire economics, in the last decades of the 19th century, you really could buy happiness. Money was everything. Government was nothing. Or, at least… not a force that couldn’t be bought.

Kill someone of only modest import? You pay a fine of $199.95.

Kind of the way Mexico works today.

So what’s fair about Laissez Faire?

Is it fair to have no minimum wage? Laissez faire would say yes, but The Grapes of Wrath would say, um, "No. No and a half."

The logic runs that human beings, needing to eat, will do pretty much anything to feed their kids. Will they work for just 5 bucks an hour to pay for that last meal? Probably. A dollar an hour? If it’ll feed their kid, you bet.

Fair? Maybe among cave people. But not today.

But then there are other perspectives to consider. Like, is it fair to have child labor laws? If kids want to earn money cobbling shoes, or making straw hats, or working 16-hour days in a stock brokerage, shouldn't they be allowed to do so?

Fair? Not fair?

Laissez we don’t know for sure.