Archive | Economic LIberties

Thank you to The Volokh Conspiracy for allowing me to guest blog this week about economic liberty and the law. Economic freedom is one of the most crucial of human rights, and it is a shame that government violates this right in so many ways today, and with little serious opposition by the courts that are […]

There’s a surprising amount of great poetry about economic liberty; perhaps the most famous is Shylock’s comment in The Merchant of Venice, when Antonio recommends that the state confiscate Shylock’s property: “Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that: / You take my house when you do take the prop / That doth sustain […]

Intrusive business regulations have a disproportionately negative impact on the poor and members of minority groups, who lack the political influence that whereby wealthy corporations and politically well-connected people are able to obtain special government favors. Nobody has done better scholarship on this point than Volokh Conspiracy blogger David Bernstein. The historical examples of the […]

When talking about “substantive due process,” as I’ve been doing, one must address a number of myths about that theory that, sadly, are so common that many law students are never even taught what the theory even means. I. Here is a good example: “the Supreme Court has never in its entire history tried to derive […]

A commenter asked whether illegal immigrants have the right to earn a living. Obviously they do, as all human beings do, although that has nothing to do with whether they may violate U.S. immigration laws. But it does bring to mind the many ways that government has used immigration restrictions to give economic favors to […]

One of the most common ways government violates the right to make a living is through rules that prohibit businesses from charging low prices. Probably the most famous case about this issue is Nebbia v. New York, in which the state of New York, in the depths if the Great Depression, made it illegal to […]

Commenter rpt asks “Have you studied motor vehicle dealer restrictions?” Indeed, I have (and discuss them in chapter 7 of my book). Restrictions on auto dealerships are often explicitly designed to protect established businesses against economic competition. Take, for example, Illinois. That state’s Motor Vehicle Franchise Act establishes a government committee that decides whether to […]

Thank you to Prof. Volokh for the opportunity to discuss my book The Right To Earn A Living. One of the major themes of my book is that under today’s legal standards, courts refuse to participate in one of the mist crucial tasks of a free government: to prevent the exploitation if government’s coercive powers […]

Occupational licensing laws aren’t the only realm in which government deprives us of the freedom of economic choice simply to serve private interest groups. Consider the United Food and Commercial Workers’ war on non-union grocery stores like Wal-Mart. In many communities, union supporters persuade local officials to use zoning restrictions to bar the opening of […]

The Benedictine monks at St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, saw much of their timber felled by Hurricane Katrina.  To make the best of the situation, they began turning their downed trees into hand-crafted caskets.  Business was brisk, prompting complaints from funeral homes and an investigation by the Louisiana State Board of Embalmers and Funeral […]