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 |
 5 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.