In response to this question:
How the heck do you decide which government actions are "bad interventions" and which are "good interventions" in the "free market".
This is your response:
I am a constitutionalist. I believe that the US Constitution specifically assigns powers to the Federal Government. And the Federal Government does not have powers unless they are specifically assigned to it in the US Constitution.
I have no idea what to make of that. In the USA (only one country of many which practice "free markets") we do indeed have a particular split of powers: Federal, State, County, and Municipal. Our legal split of powers is Constitutional between the Feds & States, and AFAIK, most states are as well, but I have no idea about most Counties and Cities, so there is likely lots of variability in how lower powers are split. There are of course plenty of other countries who engage in relatively free market commerce who have forms other than Constitutional systems, and who of course split the domains differently than our constitution does between Federal and lower levels.
In light of the above, how should I make any sense out of your reply? Perhaps you mean to imply that all USA Federal meddling in commerce which derives from the US Constitution is "good" and all other meddling (either Federal which you think is not derived from the Constitution, or State, County, and City) is "bad"? Why?
FWIW, I think that the effects on commerce of particular governmental meddling is largely independent of the particular source of government from which it originates, as long as the implementation is identical. It is also of course 100% independent of what the Founding Fathers in their Wisdom might of thought about the matter. Their opinion is irrelevant to whether a practice is good or bad. That is determined by the effects today.
If you think a particular practice by the Feds is unconstitutional, well, that is what the SC is all about. They spend their time resolving such issues. If taking over automobile manufacturers or dictating the compensation for wall street execs or taking over health care is indeed outside of the constitutional powers of the federal government that will be decided by the SC. I might add that although I assume you dislike the Commerce Clause, the Patent Clause does not specify any details either. Our patent system depends on the details, and those all came after the Constitution. "Constitutionalist" is generally a label that means you think your reading is correct, while others are incorrect. Unfortunately, most the details are not in the Constitution, and its the details which are the laws.
So far from your response it would appear that all meddling is good as long as it is Constitutional. Well in that case, all meddling is good in the end, because the SC eventually rules on the constitutionality of laws deemed to be unconstitutional. |
