Re: Mises on banning stuff

Raoul — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 21:20:02 GMT

Maybe the following excerpt (about advertising)? It's a bit related.

There are many evils for which contemporary technology and therapeutics have no remedy. There are incurable diseases and there are irreparable personal defects. It is a sad fact that some people try to exploit their fellow men’s plight by offering them patent medicines. Such quackeries do not make old people young and ugly girls pretty. They only raise hopes. It would not impair the operation of the market if the authorities were to prevent such advertising, the truth of which cannot be evidenced by the methods of the experimental natural sciences. But whoever is ready to grant to the government this power would be inconsistent if he objected to the demand to submit the statements of churches and sects to the same examination. Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop. If one assigns to the government the task of making truth prevail in the advertising of perfumes and tooth paste, one cannot contest it the right to look after truth in the more important matters of religion, philosophy, and social ideology.

(HA, Chap. XV, 13)

Mises on banning stuff

Buzz Killington — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 06:02:31 GMT

Hello, I remember reading a Mises book (might have been socialism, can't remember) wherein he deals with the idea of banning stuff for individuals' own good, says something like that it reduces utility.

Any of you remember the exact quote?

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Re: Mises on banning stuff

Mises on banning stuff