A quote from today's column by David Limbaugh (the saner brother) and a few comments from me

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No central planning-type guru is as smart at allocating scarce resources as a free market pricing mechanism.(David Limbaugh, Townhall.com, 6 January 2009

Comments

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I do not think that it is alien to the matter of free markets. The point is that you admit government intervention into the markets, limiting or preventing the supply of a widely saleable good, because such a good is not just immoral in itself - that, I tend to agree, would be no business of the State - but because its consequences make it socially damaging. At that point, you have admitted the right of the state to control the markets in order to restrict or prevent the circulation of socially damaging goods. After that, how and where to interene in the markets is merely a question of practicality and, above all, of preferences. You may decide. for instance, that it s socially necessary to favour public transport over individual car driving and structure taxation and legislation to that purpose. Or you may decide it is better to favour the car industry, Either way, you are intervening in the market; and indeed you cannot avoid it, because such a thing as neutral taxation does not exist. The State has to tax; and, having to tax, it is bound to make significant choices. The State would be remiss if it did not have policies for the future of the country; and those will inevitably affect markets.