WEBVTT NOTE XXVII. The Government and the Market 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Part 6. The Hampered Market Economy 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Chapter 27. The Government and the Market 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:14.000 1. The Idea of a Third System 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:29.000 Private ownership of the means of production, market economy or capitalism, and public ownership of the means of production, socialism or communism or planning, can be neatly distinguished. 5 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:35.800 Each of these two systems of society's economic organization is open to a precise and unambiguous 6 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:38.680 description and definition. 7 00:00:38.680 --> 00:00:41.680 They can never be confounded with one another. 8 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:44.760 They cannot be mixed or combined. 9 00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:49.200 No gradual transition leads from one of them to the other. 10 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:52.440 Their aversion is contradictory. 11 00:00:52.440 --> 00:00:59.680 With regard to the same factors of production, there can only exist private control or public 12 00:00:59.680 --> 00:01:00.680 control. 13 00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:07.560 If, in the frame of a system of social cooperation, only some means of production are subject 14 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:13.740 to public ownership, while the rest are controlled by private individuals, this does not make 15 00:01:13.740 --> 00:01:19.380 for a mixed system combining socialism and private ownership. 16 00:01:19.380 --> 00:01:26.100 The system remains a market society, provided the socialized sector does not become entirely 17 00:01:26.100 --> 00:01:33.220 separated from the non-socialized sector and lead a strictly autarkic existence. 18 00:01:33.220 --> 00:01:40.140 In this latter case, there are two systems independently coexisting side by side, a capitalist 19 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:42.860 and a socialist. 20 00:01:42.860 --> 00:01:48.100 Publicly owned enterprises operating within a system in which there are privately owned 21 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:54.720 Enterprises and a Market, and socialized countries exchanging goods and services with 22 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:00.720 non-socialist countries are integrated into a system of market economy. 23 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:06.120 They are subject to the law of the market and have the opportunity of resorting to economic 24 00:02:06.120 --> 00:02:08.040 calculation. 25 00:02:08.040 --> 00:02:14.520 If one considers the idea of placing by the side of these two systems, or between them, 26 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:20.960 A third system of human cooperation under the division of labor, one can always start only 27 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:26.640 from the notion of the market economy, never from that of socialism. 28 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:32.880 The notion of socialism with its rigid monism and centralism that vests the power to choose 29 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:40.500 and to act in one will exclusively, does not allow of any compromise or concession. 30 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:46.700 This construction is not amenable to any adjustment or alteration, but it is different with the 31 00:02:46.700 --> 00:02:49.460 scheme of the market economy. 32 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:55.500 Here the dualism of the market and the government's power of coercion and compulsion suggests 33 00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:57.800 various ideas. 34 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:03.420 Is it really peremptory or expedient, people ask, that the government keep itself out of 35 00:03:03.420 --> 00:03:04.800 the market? 36 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:10.460 Should it not be a task of government to interfere and to correct the operation of the market? 37 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:16.960 Is it necessary to put up with the alternative of capitalism or socialism? 38 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:28.460 Are there not perhaps still other realizable systems of social organization which are neither communism nor pure and unhampered market economy? 39 00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:39.460 Thus people have contrived a variety of third solutions, of systems which, it is claimed, are as far from socialism as they are from capitalism. 40 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:48.460 Their authors allege that these systems are non-socialist because they aim to preserve private ownership of the means of production, 41 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:55.460 and that they are not capitalistic because they eliminate the deficiencies of the market economy. 42 00:03:55.460 --> 00:04:16.460 For a scientific treatment of the problems involved, which by necessity is neutral with regard to all value judgments, and therefore does not condemn any features of capitalism as faulty, detrimental or unjust, this emotional recommendation of interventionism is of no avail. 43 00:04:16.460 --> 00:04:21.460 The task of economics is to analyze and to search for truth. 44 00:04:21.460 --> 00:04:30.460 It is not called upon to praise or to disapprove from any standard of preconceived postulates and prejudices. 45 00:04:30.460 --> 00:04:36.460 With regard to interventionism, it has only one question to ask and to answer. 46 00:04:36.460 --> 00:04:39.460 How does it work? 47 00:04:39.460 --> 00:04:42.460 2. The Intervention 48 00:04:42.460 --> 00:04:47.260 There are two patterns for the realization of socialism. 49 00:04:47.260 --> 00:04:53.900 The first pattern, we may call it the Lenin or the Russian pattern, is purely bureaucratic. 50 00:04:53.900 --> 00:05:00.180 All plants, shops and farms are formally nationalized. 51 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:04.900 They are departments of the government, operated by civil servants. 52 00:05:04.900 --> 00:05:09.900 Every unit of the apparatus of production stands in the same relation to the superior 53 00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:23.740 The second pattern, we may call it the Hindenburg or German pattern, nominally and seemingly 54 00:05:23.740 --> 00:05:29.420 preserves private ownership of the means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary 55 00:05:29.420 --> 00:05:33.540 markets, prices, wages and interest rates. 56 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:40.660 There are, however, no longer entrepreneurs, but only shop managers, Betriebsführer, in 57 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:44.260 the terminology of the Nazi legislation. 58 00:05:44.260 --> 00:05:49.520 These shop managers are seemingly instrumental in the conduct of the enterprises entrusted 59 00:05:49.520 --> 00:05:50.740 to them. 60 00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:57.860 They buy and sell, hire and discharge workers, and remunerate their services, contract debts 61 00:05:57.860 --> 00:06:01.060 and pay interest and amortization. 62 00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:06.600 that in all their activities they are bound to obey unconditionally the orders issued 63 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:11.300 by the government's supreme office of production management. 64 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:17.880 This office, the Reichswirtschaftsministerium in Nazi Germany, tells the shop managers what 65 00:06:17.880 --> 00:06:25.120 and how to produce, at what prices, and from whom to buy, at what prices, and to whom to 66 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:26.460 sell. 67 00:06:26.460 --> 00:06:31.380 It assigns every worker to his job and fixes his wages. 68 00:06:31.380 --> 00:06:38.260 It decrees to whom and on what terms the capitalist must entrust their funds. 69 00:06:38.260 --> 00:06:41.100 Market exchange is merely a sham. 70 00:06:41.100 --> 00:06:45.940 All the wages, prices and interest rates are fixed by the government. 71 00:06:45.940 --> 00:06:50.660 They are wages, prices and interest rates in appearance only. 72 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:56.020 In fact, they are merely quantitative terms in the government's orders determining each 73 00:06:56.020 --> 00:07:01.380 Research Citizens' Job, Income, Consumption and Standard of Living. 74 00:07:01.380 --> 00:07:05.260 The government directs all production activities. 75 00:07:05.260 --> 00:07:11.180 The shop managers are subject to the government, not to the consumer's demand and the market's 76 00:07:11.180 --> 00:07:13.260 price structure. 77 00:07:13.260 --> 00:07:19.580 This is socialism under the outward guise of the terminology of capitalism. 78 00:07:19.580 --> 00:07:25.920 Some labels of the capitalistic market economy are retained, but they signify something entirely 79 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:30.560 are very different from what they mean in the market economy. 80 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:36.040 It is necessary to point out this fact in order to prevent a confusion of socialism 81 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:38.360 and interventionism. 82 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:44.680 The system of interventionism, or of the hampered market economy, differs from the German pattern 83 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:50.620 of socialism by the very fact that it is still a market economy. 84 00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:55.900 The authority interferes with the operation of the market economy but does not want to 85 00:07:55.900 --> 00:08:02.340 to eliminate the market altogether. It wants production and consumption to develop along 86 00:08:02.340 --> 00:08:08.720 lines different from those prescribed by an unhampered market, and it wants to achieve 87 00:08:08.720 --> 00:08:14.960 its aim by injecting into the working of the market orders, commands and prohibitions for 88 00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:20.900 whose enforcement the police power and its apparatus of violent compulsion and coercion 89 00:08:20.900 --> 00:08:22.860 stand ready. 90 00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:26.580 But these are isolated acts of intervention. 91 00:08:26.580 --> 00:08:32.340 It is not the aim of the government to combine them into an integrated system which determines 92 00:08:32.340 --> 00:08:38.980 all prices, wages and interest rates, and thus places full control of production and 93 00:08:38.980 --> 00:08:43.020 consumption into the hands of the authorities. 94 00:08:43.020 --> 00:08:49.040 The system of the hampered market economy or interventionism aims at preserving the 95 00:08:49.040 --> 00:08:55.280 The dualism of the distinct spheres of government activities on the one hand and economic freedom 96 00:08:55.280 --> 00:08:58.980 under the market system on the other hand. 97 00:08:58.980 --> 00:09:04.860 What characterizes it as such is the fact that the government does not limit its activities 98 00:09:04.860 --> 00:09:10.360 to the preservation of private ownership of the means of production and its protection 99 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:13.240 against violent encroachments. 100 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:20.300 The government interferes with the operation of business by means of orders and prohibitions. 101 00:09:20.300 --> 00:09:26.720 The intervention is a decree issued, directly or indirectly, by the authority in charge 102 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:32.740 of the administrative apparatus of coercion and compulsion, which forces the entrepreneurs 103 00:09:32.740 --> 00:09:38.600 and capitalists to employ some of the factors of production in a way different from what 104 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:44.440 What they would have resorted to if they were only obeying the dictates of the market. 105 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:51.620 Such a decree can be either an order to do something or an order not to do something. 106 00:09:51.620 --> 00:09:57.160 It is not required that the decree be issued directly by the established and generally 107 00:09:57.160 --> 00:10:00.260 recognized authority itself. 108 00:10:00.260 --> 00:10:06.320 It may happen that some other agencies arrogate to themselves the power to issue such orders 109 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:11.760 Procedures or Prohibitions, and to enforce them by an apparatus of violent coercion and 110 00:10:11.760 --> 00:10:14.480 oppression of their own. 111 00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:20.580 If the recognized government tolerates such procedures, or even supports them by the employment 112 00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:28.400 of its governmental police apparatus, matters stand as if the government itself had acted. 113 00:10:28.400 --> 00:10:34.400 If the government is opposed to other agencies' violent action, but does not succeed in suppressing 114 00:10:34.400 --> 00:10:44.340 It is important to remember that government 115 00:10:44.340 --> 00:10:51.580 interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. 116 00:10:51.580 --> 00:10:58.820 Government is, in the last resort, the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, 117 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:01.280 prison guards and hangmen. 118 00:11:01.280 --> 00:11:07.160 The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing 119 00:11:07.160 --> 00:11:09.200 and imprisoning. 120 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:15.480 Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion 121 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:17.720 and less freedom. 122 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:24.640 To draw attention to this fact does not imply any reflection upon government activities. 123 00:11:24.640 --> 00:11:31.600 In stark reality, peaceful social cooperation is impossible if no provision is made for 124 00:11:31.600 --> 00:11:38.360 violent prevention and suppression of antisocial action on the part of refractory individuals 125 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:41.040 and groups of individuals. 126 00:11:41.040 --> 00:11:46.940 One must take exception to the often repeated phrase that government is an evil, although 127 00:11:46.940 --> 00:11:50.780 a necessary and indispensable evil. 128 00:11:50.780 --> 00:11:57.220 What is required for the attainment of an end aimed at is a means, the cost to be expended 129 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:00.300 for its successful realization. 130 00:12:00.300 --> 00:12:05.980 It is an arbitrary value judgment to describe it as an evil in the moral connotation of 131 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:06.980 the term. 132 00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:13.500 However, in face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, 133 00:12:13.500 --> 00:12:18.900 it is good to remind ourselves that the Old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing 134 00:12:18.900 --> 00:12:31.900 3. 135 00:12:31.900 --> 00:12:38.540 The Delimitation of Governmental Functions Various schools of thought, parading under 136 00:12:38.540 --> 00:12:45.300 the pompous names of philosophy of law and political science, indulge in futile and empty 137 00:12:45.300 --> 00:13:15.300 The Theory of Money and Credit 138 00:13:15.300 --> 00:13:21.460 However, no such thing as natural law and a perennial standard of what is just and what 139 00:13:21.460 --> 00:13:23.540 is unjust. 140 00:13:23.540 --> 00:13:27.520 Nature is alien to the idea of right and wrong. 141 00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:32.400 Thou shalt not kill is certainly not part of natural law. 142 00:13:32.400 --> 00:13:38.380 The characteristic feature of natural conditions is that one animal is intent upon killing 143 00:13:38.380 --> 00:13:45.880 Other Animals, and that many species cannot preserve their own life except by killing others. 144 00:13:45.880 --> 00:13:53.040 The notion of right and wrong is a human device, a utilitarian precept designed to make social 145 00:13:53.040 --> 00:13:57.340 cooperation under the division of labor possible. 146 00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:04.000 All moral rules and human laws are means for the realization of definite ends. 147 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:09.660 There is no method available for the appreciation of their goodness or badness other than to 148 00:14:09.660 --> 00:14:16.460 scrutinize their usefulness for the attainment of the ends chosen and aimed at. 149 00:14:16.460 --> 00:14:22.080 From the notion of natural law, some people deduce the justice of the institution of private 150 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:25.560 property in the means of production. 151 00:14:25.560 --> 00:14:30.520 Other people resort to natural law for the justification of the abolition of private 152 00:14:30.520 --> 00:14:33.640 property in the means of production. 153 00:14:33.640 --> 00:14:41.440 As the idea of natural law is quite arbitrary, such discussions are not open to settlement. 154 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:45.640 State and government are not ends, but means. 155 00:14:45.640 --> 00:14:51.960 Inflicting evil upon other people is a source of direct pleasure only to sadists. 156 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:57.480 Established authorities resort to coercion and compulsion in order to safeguard the smooth 157 00:14:57.480 --> 00:15:02.300 operation of a definite system of social organization. 158 00:15:02.300 --> 00:15:08.100 The sphere in which coercion and compulsion is applied and the content of the laws which 159 00:15:08.100 --> 00:15:15.060 are to be enforced by the police apparatus are conditioned by the social order adopted. 160 00:15:15.060 --> 00:15:21.280 As state and government are designed to make this social system operate safely, the delimitation 161 00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:26.300 of governmental functions must be adjusted to its requirements. 162 00:15:26.300 --> 00:15:31.820 The only standard for the appreciation of the laws and the methods for their enforcement 163 00:15:31.820 --> 00:15:39.320 is whether or not they are efficient in safeguarding the social order which it is desired to preserve. 164 00:15:39.320 --> 00:15:45.620 The notion of justice makes sense only when referring to a definite system of norms, which 165 00:15:45.620 --> 00:15:52.160 in itself is assumed to be uncontested and safe against any criticism. 166 00:15:52.160 --> 00:15:57.540 Many peoples have clung to the doctrine that what is right and what is wrong is established 167 00:15:57.540 --> 00:16:02.140 from the Dawn of the Remotest Ages and for Eternity. 168 00:16:02.140 --> 00:16:08.120 The task of legislators and courts was not to make the laws, but to find out what is 169 00:16:08.120 --> 00:16:13.460 right by virtue of the unchanging idea of justice. 170 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:19.960 This doctrine, which resulted in an adamant conservatism and a petrification of old customs 171 00:16:19.960 --> 00:16:26.080 and institutions, was challenged by the doctrine of natural right. 172 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:33.560 To the positive laws of the country, the notion of a higher law, the law of nature, was opposed. 173 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:39.660 From the arbitrary standard of natural law, the valid statutes and institutions were called 174 00:16:39.660 --> 00:16:42.180 just or unjust. 175 00:16:42.180 --> 00:16:47.800 To the good legislator was assigned the task of making the positive laws agree with the 176 00:16:47.800 --> 00:16:49.960 natural law. 177 00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:55.820 The fundamental errors involved in these two doctrines have long since been unmasked. 178 00:16:55.820 --> 00:17:01.420 For those not deluded by them, it is obvious that the appeal to justice in a debate concerning 179 00:17:01.420 --> 00:17:07.940 the drafting of new laws is an instance of circular reasoning. De legge ferenda, there 180 00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:15.060 is no such thing as justice. The notion of justice can logically only be resorted to 181 00:17:15.060 --> 00:17:23.260 De legge lata. It makes sense only when approving or disapproving concrete conduct from the 182 00:17:23.260 --> 00:17:27.200 The Point of View of the Valid Laws of the Country 183 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:33.140 In considering changes in the nation's legal system, in rewriting or repealing existing 184 00:17:33.140 --> 00:17:41.860 laws and writing new laws, the issue is not justice but social expediency and social welfare. 185 00:17:41.860 --> 00:17:48.120 There is no such thing as an absolute notion of justice not referring to a definite system 186 00:17:48.120 --> 00:17:50.680 of social organization. 187 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:56.720 It is not justice that determines the decision in favor of a definite social system. 188 00:17:56.720 --> 00:18:02.720 It is, on the contrary, the social system which determines what should be deemed right 189 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:04.720 and what wrong. 190 00:18:04.720 --> 00:18:10.000 There is neither right nor wrong outside the social nexus. 191 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:16.640 For the hypothetical isolated and self-sufficient individual, the notions of just and unjust 192 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:18.320 are empty. 193 00:18:18.320 --> 00:18:24.560 Such an individual can merely distinguish between what is more expedient and what is less expedient 194 00:18:24.560 --> 00:18:26.400 for himself. 195 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:32.520 The idea of justice refers always to social cooperation. 196 00:18:32.520 --> 00:18:38.620 It is nonsensical to justify or to reject interventionism from the point of view of 197 00:18:38.620 --> 00:18:43.680 a fictitious and arbitrary idea of absolute justice. 198 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:50.460 It is vain to ponder over the just delimitation of the tasks of government from any preconceived 199 00:18:50.460 --> 00:18:53.360 standard of perennial values. 200 00:18:53.360 --> 00:18:59.380 It is no less impermissible to deduce the proper tasks of government from the very notions 201 00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:03.320 of government, state, law and justice. 202 00:19:03.320 --> 00:19:09.680 It was precisely this that was absurd in the speculations of medieval scholasticism, of 203 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:16.080 by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, and of German Begrieff's U.S. Prudence. 204 00:19:16.080 --> 00:19:18.280 Concepts are tools of reasoning. 205 00:19:18.280 --> 00:19:25.280 They must never be considered as regulative principles dictating modes of conduct. 206 00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:32.280 It is a display of supererogatory mental gymnastics to emphasize that the notions of state and 207 00:19:32.280 --> 00:19:40.280 and sovereignty logically imply absolute supremacy and thus preclude the idea of any limitations 208 00:19:40.280 --> 00:19:42.680 on the state's activities. 209 00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:48.920 Nobody questions the fact that a state has the power to establish totalitarianism within 210 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:52.080 the territory in which it is sovereign. 211 00:19:52.080 --> 00:19:57.500 The problem is whether or not such a mode of government is expedient from the point 212 00:19:57.500 --> 00:20:02.880 of View of the Preservation and Functioning of Social Cooperation. 213 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:09.340 With regard to this problem, no sophisticated exegesis of concepts and notions can be of 214 00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:11.020 any use. 215 00:20:11.020 --> 00:20:18.940 It must be decided by praxeology, not by asperious metaphysics of state and right. 216 00:20:18.940 --> 00:20:25.420 The philosophy of law and political science are at a loss to discover any reason why government 217 00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:32.420 should not control prices and not punish those defying the price ceilings decreed, in the 218 00:20:32.420 --> 00:20:36.180 same way as it punishes murderers and thieves. 219 00:20:36.180 --> 00:20:42.460 As they see it, the institution of private property is merely a revocable favor graciously 220 00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:47.340 granted by the Almighty Sovereign to the wretched individuals. 221 00:20:47.340 --> 00:20:55.200 There cannot be any wrong in repealing totally or partially the laws that granted this favor. 222 00:20:55.200 --> 00:21:01.200 No reasonable objection can be raised against expropriation and confiscation. 223 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:07.080 The legislator is free to substitute any social system for that of the private ownership of 224 00:21:07.080 --> 00:21:12.760 the means of production, just as he is free to substitute another national anthem for 225 00:21:12.760 --> 00:21:15.200 that adopted in the past. 226 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:22.720 The formula cartel et notre bon plaisir, for such is our good pleasure, is the only maxim 227 00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:32.760 As against all this formalism and legal dogmatism, there is need to emphasize again that the 228 00:21:32.760 --> 00:21:39.540 only purpose of the laws and the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion is to safeguard 229 00:21:39.540 --> 00:21:43.500 the smooth functioning of social cooperation. 230 00:21:43.500 --> 00:21:49.420 It is obvious that the government has the power to decree maximum prices and to imprison 231 00:21:49.420 --> 00:22:19.300 The problem of interventionism is not a problem of the 232 00:22:19.300 --> 00:22:26.660 The correct delimitation of the natural, just and adequate tasks of state and government. 233 00:22:26.660 --> 00:22:31.980 The issue is, how does a system of interventionism work? 234 00:22:31.980 --> 00:22:38.500 Can it realize those ends which people, in resorting to it, want to attain? 235 00:22:38.500 --> 00:22:43.900 The confusion and lack of judgment displayed in dealing with the problems of interventionism 236 00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:46.220 are amazing indeed. 237 00:22:46.220 --> 00:22:49.700 There are, for instance, people who argue thus. 238 00:22:49.700 --> 00:22:54.860 It is obvious that traffic regulations on the public roads are necessary. 239 00:22:54.860 --> 00:23:00.040 Nobody objects to the government's interference with the car driver's conduct. 240 00:23:00.040 --> 00:23:05.120 The advocates of laissez-faire contradict themselves in fighting government interference 241 00:23:05.120 --> 00:23:12.560 with market prices and yet not advocating the abolition of government traffic regulation. 242 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:15.520 The fallacy of this argument is manifest. 243 00:23:15.520 --> 00:23:21.360 The regulation of traffic on a road is one of the tasks incumbent upon the agency that 244 00:23:21.360 --> 00:23:23.460 operates the road. 245 00:23:23.460 --> 00:23:30.340 If this agency is the government or the municipality, it is bound to attend to this task. 246 00:23:30.340 --> 00:23:35.760 It is the task of a railroad's management to fix the timetable of the trains, and it 247 00:23:35.760 --> 00:23:40.960 is the task of a hotel's management to decide whether or not there should be music in the 248 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:47.120 and the Dining Room. If the government operates a railroad or a hotel, it is the government's 249 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:53.320 task to regulate these things. It is not an instance of government interference with the 250 00:23:53.320 --> 00:23:59.520 operation of the market economy that the postmaster general chooses the pattern and the color 251 00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:05.240 of the postage stamps. With a state opera, the government decides which operas should 252 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:12.240 be produced and which not. It is a non sequitur to deduce from this fact that it is also a 253 00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:17.400 task of the government to decide these things for a non-governmental opera.