Different Views

As a Commerce Department employee, I get emails from the top brass about what the Biden Administration is doing for American commerce and industry, such as providing $50 billion to America’s computer chip industry. As a classical liberal, I am highly skeptical about the benefits of such measures, and believe that it would be better to leave it to the market to decide which firms in which industries will receive how much in investments. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and resources directed by government to one industry have to come at the expense of someone else.

I am reminded that when Louis XIV’s minister Colbert asked what he could do for industry, one businessman replied, “Laissez nous faire, le mond va de lui-meme.” “Let us do, the world goes of itself.”