A Private Auction of Opportunities
5 Pages Posted: 26 Apr 2006
Abstract
Several recent cases have endorsed and broadened the legality of state efforts to protect in-state industries from interstate competition. These rulings endanger the continued viability of the rule of law. The expansion of these laws threatens to transform representative government from a forum in which competing views of the public good are deliberated and resolved, into a private auction of opportunities and monopolies to those interest groups capable of bidding.
Keywords: State industries, interstate competition, rule of law, monopolies, protectionism, wealth of nations, rent-seeking, free market
JEL Classification: K2, K20, K22, K23, K29, K34, K39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation