Price controls are when you solve the loud noise your smoke alarm is making by removing the battery.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Price controls…Perry de Havilland (Prague) · Economics, Business & Globalization · Slogans & Quotations · UK affairs October 28th, 2025 |
 9 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Price controls…Leave a Reply |
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. . . . which is precisely what you would do if your goal were to burn the house to the ground.
llater,
llamas
Peter Hague is correct – and thank you Perry for posting this.
llamas – YES, for example Mr Mamdani, Democrat candidate for Mayor of New York, demands that prices, wages and rents (wages and rents are prices) should be controlled by the government he KNOWS the terrible harm such policies would cause – I have watched this person closely and he is NOT stupid, indeed he is highly intelligent.
When he, and people like him, prevent the laws of supply and demand (what really should be setting prices, wages and rents) operating, they know the economic chaos they will will cause – and that is their intention – their INTENTION.
Partly (as in Venezuela) they push price, wage and rent controls because they know such regulations will bankrupt business enterprises and property owners – meaning that the government will “have to” take over, which means that socialism will be “achieved”.
But I am certain it is deeper than that – deep down such people as Mr Mamdani inflict harm because they ENJOY inflicting harm – they get a “kick” out of human suffering. Perhaps this dark emotion exists in all humans – but they have given into it, it has consumed them.
This is why the entire “explain things to our opponents” approach that free market folk have tried for so many years is fatally flawed – it is no good explaining to the Collectivist elite (the Robert Reichs and so on) the terrible harm that statism does – it is no good explaining it to them, because THEY ALREADY KNOW – and doing harm is their real objective.
This is not a matter of intellectual error – it is a matter of human evil.
As for the specific example given on X – the new regulations on rents, and so on, in Britain.
These regulations will destroy private renting and massively increase homelessness – which is precisely what these regulations are intended to do.
Let us have no more talk of the “unintended consequences” of government regulations and spending schemes – the consequences are intended.
That’s a great analogy. I’m going to remember that one.
Price controls in general are bad politics, but rent control is, unfortunately, good politics, even though a rent is simply a price.
Price controls invariably result in shortages. Rather than resulting in cheap goods, they result in no goods. This impacts everyone and is understandably unpopular. Eventually politicians are forced to remove the controls and let the free market work its magic.
Rent controls, on the other hand, are good politics. They create a small group of winners – those in accommodation at below-market rents, who can be relied to vote for the politician and party which introduced the controls, as well as lobby vigorously for their continuance. However, for most people the impact of rent controls is not obvious and they don’t have any strong feelings on the subject.
Schrodinger’s Dog – New York City has more experience of rent control than any other city in the United States, the consequences, over time, have (as you know) been terrible – so if people vote for even more of it (and price controls and so on) next Tuesday, it might be hard to have much sympathy…..
However, about half the population of New York City are immigrants (thanks to the post 1965 Immigration Act insanity – in the past immigrants came to join American society, now, from the 1960s onwards, they come for government benefits and public services, neither of which used to exist, and are open in their hatred of America) who have no real understanding of the society they have entered, and many of the “native born” are functionally illiterate – thanks to the government schools, which spend a fortune, but produce (I suspect deliberately produce) very large numbers of people who can not read past a very basic level – and so can not read critical examinations of policies. They understand the crude slogans – but not the refutations, and that is just what the statists want. A population critics of statism can-not-reach – because the population can not understand what we are saying.
And the products of the “elite” private schools are filled with leftist indoctrination – the “Trust Fund Kids” are supporting Mr Mamdani.
Mass immigration of people who do not understand (and have hatred for) the society they are entering and come for government benefits and public services.
A poorly educated population – that, by-no-fault-of-their-own, can not really follow a written refutation of the policies of statism.
And even the “elite” private schools going “Woke”.
New York City sounds like what Britain is becoming. New York City is further down the road of decay and destruction than we in Britain are – but we are on the same road.
The “have hatred for” is important – in the past we were told that whilst modern immigrants (and their children and children’s children) hated Britain (hence their voting for Mayor Khan and so on), modern immigrants to America had “assimilated” as past generations of immigrants (who came before the government benefits and public services were created) had done.
The election of such people as “The Squad” (a group of members of Congress who are open in their fanatical hatred of the United States) should have ended that myth – “The Squad” get most of their votes from immigrants of recent decades AND (an important point) the children and children’s children of these immigrants – there is no “assimilation” in terms of basic beliefs – no more than there is in Britain, where three generations now have shown that “assimilation” of basic BELIEFS is a myth.
If (if) Mr Mamdani is elected Mayor of New York City it will be terrible (especially for people who have lived in the city for many generations and will have to leave – or be plundered, and then have to leave) – but at least everyone will know what the situation is.
There will be no more pretense of “modern immigrants are like previous generations of immigrants in the distant past – they will assimilate into American society and become Americans”.
They will NOT assimilate (in terms of principles, in terms of beliefs) – no more than the waves of Third World immigrants have assimilated into the Netherlands and become Dutch.
Today the Netherlands, the Dutch people, have perhaps their last chance – they must reject the indoctrination of the education system and the media, and save-themselves.
But I fear there will be no clear majority for pro Western parties in the Netherlands – that a coalition of establishment parties will form, as in Austria (where 40%, and rising, of the children in schools in Vienna are NOT Westerners – and do NOT wish to be Westerners).
Still the people in the Netherlands have a chance today – unlike the people in the Republic of Ireland who were not allowed any pro Irish candidates for President.
Most people in Ireland did not vote, and many of the people who did “vote” (i.e. turned up to the polling stations) spoiled their ballot papers in protest at no anti mass immigration candidates being allowed to stand.
But it did not matter – all that mattered, as far as the international left establishment (hello Guardian newspaper – truly the child of Plato, with his desire that Guardians rule – crushing ordinary people) were concerned was that a pro mass immigration person was elected President.
If they could only do that by not allowing any anti mass immigration candidate to stand for election – that, the MURDER of democracy in Ireland, did not bother them at all.
Well the people of the Netherlands (or many of them) have voted for a period of “peace” – by voting for such parties as the “liberal” D66 party.
They do not understand, or perhaps they do understand, that by voting for “peace and quiet” they have voted for slow death.
I know that some “far right” (i.e. opposed to the destruction of Netherlands and the rest of the West) parties gained seats in the election (basically the seats the Freedom Party lost) – but it will not be enough.