Reading Assignment #14-The Sumptuary Manifesto

A.
I found a couple things in this article to be interesting and I am happy I chose this article because it made me think of a ton of economic related topics we have learned this year. Specifically, I think the reading very well articulated how a society should NOT be run to promote economic growth. Most, if not all, of the laws presented in this article would be bad for economic growth and go against what we have learned this semester to be "good economics."

First a foremost, I found it interesting how this society/governing body felt that wasting resources was so bad that it was necessary to enact such specific regulations so as to control exactly what a person can and cannot do.

All semester long, we have learned how over regulation is a bad thing, that is prevents possible transactions from taking place that could very well be productive. I just found it interesting how convinced the governing body seemed to be that their ridiculous regulatory behaviors would lead society to more success than harm. As we have learned in class, this couldn't be farther from the truth.

I also found the rules and regulations presented in this article to be completely hypocritical. In the article, it says that no one should "propagandize" against them. Meanwhile, this entire article is complete propaganda, spitting out ridiculous and oppressing regulations for people to follow.

Finally, the last thing I found interesting about this article was the ridiculousness of some of these rules. I don't even understand the goal in some of them- does the governing body really think enacting some of these rules will do anything to help society? Some of the rules I am talking about are:

1. You can't live in a dwelling of more than 400 square feet.
2. You can't own a car with a wheelbase over 72 inches.
3. Drink whiskey aged more than 60 days. 

The article hints at that such regulations are in order to minimize wasteful consumption of things. My question is how do these regulations help anybody? What if people enjoy whiskey aged 70 days? Why shouldn't they be able to drink it? By taking whiskey and the other items above off the market, they are removing potential transactions that could take place, which effectively makes the society poorer and worse off.

Also, to go back to the whiskey example, think about what making whiskey aged over 60 days illegal might do. It might increase crime. As we have learned in class about drugs, making stuff illegal incetivizes people to commit crimes. If whiskey over 60 days old becomes illegal, people who want aged whiskey might be willing to harm someone in order to get it or prevent themselves from getting in trouble for having it. Thus, to me at least, most, if not all, of these regulations seem completely counter productive to me.

B.
1. Why do they think such a large amount of regulation will lead to success in society?
2. Did they ever stop to consider the ramifications of regulating so much? Did they consider how much production they are losing by regulating so much?
3. Is there any chance for this society to thrive, or is it almost a guarantee that it will become stagnant at one point or another? Is it possible for a society to not be stagnant and thrive even if it has so much regulation that it prevents productive transactions from taking place?


C.
After reading this week's reading assignment, I thought of one thing: how everything in this article basically represents bad economics and goes against what we have learned this semester as being good economics.

The article starts out explaining how the society is trying to minimize "wasteful" consumption. To do this, the society is enacting a myriad of laws. Here are some of them:

It is a capital offense to:

1. Live in a dwelling of more than 400 square feet.
2. Own an automobile with a wheelbase over 72 inches.
3. Drink whiskey aged more than 60 days.
4. Smoke more than one cigarette in one day
5. Appear in public clean shaven (if a male)

There are countless more laws in order like this. The whole point of this, as the reading points out, is to minimize waste in society so as to reconstruct their "greedy wasteful society".

As a side- here was my reaction: Who is actually being the greedy one? I say the government for enacting these rules. They are limiting what people can and cannot do. Who says if someone smokes more than 10 cigarettes a day they are wasting? By doing all of the "offenses" above, economic growth happens. If people have a need to do the above things, they should be allowed.

The article then goes on to say how these rules will be enforced through monitoring techniques/jobs such as judges, policemen, detectives, etc. As we learned in class, this is also ridiculously unproductive. Instead of going out and producing more goods for society to use and benefit from, these monitors will be wasting their time monitoring when, in reality, they may very well not be necessary at all (if people were just allowed to do as they pleased). 

Thus, all of the rules/enactments in this society go against what we have learned to be good economics. 

The reading then concludes with presenting more rules and regulations, such as taxing certain things and having price ceilings in certain markets.

Once again, as we have learned in class, these regulations can be bad as well to economic growth because they prevent transactions that would be beneficial to sellers and buyers from taking place.

The reading also concludes with saying that freedom/a free market is an enemy and that real consumer freedom should be, and possibly is, what the governing body is proposing as laws.

This is comical, and, as we have learned in Econ 108 this semester, not logical one bit.