Statists are demanding that the government impose price controls, now that reckless spending and money creation have brought on rapidly increasing prices. One of the claims we’re hearing is that we should ignore all that stuff about economic theory and look at history for instances when price controls “worked.”
Don’t buy it. Economics professor William Anderson has a sharp refutation here.
Referring to Harold Meyerson’s hymn to price controls during World War II, Anderson writes, “Yet that tells us absolutely nothing, for he fails to mention the shortages, official rationing of goods, and the general economic misery that Americans faced during those conflicts, when the economy, geared to total war, vacuumed up vast numbers of resources, leaving Americans on the home front to scramble for the leftovers and, with much difficulty, scratch out a living.”
To that, I’d add the economic waste of having to hire a small army of price-control officials to enforce the system. Leftists never see the opportunity cost of creating “jobs” that produce no value.
Read the whole thing.