Ancient societies were mostly closed societies. Modern society (at least as conceived by most of America’s “founding fathers”) was to be something very different: open.
But today there’s way too much “managed” competition, basically closing out businesses not on some insider list.
Julie Crowe, a veteran of the armed forces and lifelong resident of Bloomington, Illinois, wanted to start up a van ride service, mainly to drive party-going Illinois State students safely home. There are big buses for Bloomington revelers, but no vans. Her new service would have provided interesting competition for existing outfits, and her idea of providing safer, more personal, comfier rides home — arguably better than taxicabs, and certainly better than the buses — smacks of a plausible business plan.
But the city denied her a permit to even try, on the grounds that her proposal wasn’t “in the public interest.”
Preposterous, of course. Or, as her lawyer, Jacob Huebert, puts it,
How can city planners know the “right” number of vehicles to serve the community? They can’t possibly know that, any more than they can know the right number of supermarkets or the right number of restaurants.
Huebert is associate counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, a project of the Illinois Policy Institute, which has as its stated goal ensuring “that the rights to earn a living and to start a business, which are essential to a free and prosperous society, are available not just to a politically privileged few, but to all.”
A great cause. The “eternal vigilance” required to establish and maintain a free, open society means challenging idiotic government encroachments one case at a time.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
2 replies on “Closed: No Competition”
The “public interest” is whomever has been donating to the public representative. That’s how they know which grievance petitions to redress.
In Los Angeles, it’s illegal to operate jitney service, unless every passenger either boards at Los Angeles International Airport or has that airport as the destination. This law was passed in deference to the Metropolitan Transit Authority and major taxicab companies, which fear competition. The allowance, such as it is, for jitney service came about due to intense lobbying by major hotels that serve the airport.
This is precisely the type of idiotic government encroachment described in the article. For decades, it has not been effectively challenged.