Criminalizing everyday life Share This:

government. It is not merely the taxes, fees and fines that render many small ventures unprofitable; it is the progressive criminalization of everyday life.



In an



A few days ago, I came across



And then there are government policies that do not criminalize an occupation but destroy its ability to function, which achieves the same end. For example, according to



An essential building block of prosperity is the ability to sell your labor to those who wish to buy it. It is onerous enough when the government stands between every buyer and seller in order to skim off profit that would otherwise go into retirement savings or into the mouths of children.But the thievery pales in comparison to the legal/political judgment that now has to be passed before an exchange can occur. People desperately need every honest option available to make a living; government is trying to make sure you don't have any options that don't involve its approval and its cut.

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Printer Friendly Wendy McElroy - Monday 15 September 2008 - 14:30:43 - Permalink As the economy continues its wild and downward ride, people are searching for ways to make money, with many of them turning their hands to "cottage industries" -- that is, home-based small businesses such as web design, catering or the provision of day care. Instead of demanding a hand-out from government, these entrepreneurs are taking control of their own lives by putting in the sweat equity that new businesses require; they are creating precisely the type of wealth that makes society prosper and, along the way, they are feeding their children. The single biggest obstacle they will encounter is. It is not merely the taxes, fees and fines that render many small ventures unprofitable; it is the progressive criminalization of everyday life.In an August 22nd post entitled "Illegal to talk about Liberty Bell for money?", I described the increasing cartelization of common professions such as interior design or hair styling. The opening sentence was a quote from an article by Bob Ewing of the Institute for Justice: "A new law in Philadelphia will make it a crime in the coming weeks to talk about the Liberty Bell for money without the governmentâ€™s permission. Unlicensed tour guides will be subject to hundreds of dollars in fines for talking about the place where the Declaration of Independence was written." By criminalizing a myriad of innocuous activities, the government rakes in fines as well as exerting social control -- often for the benefit of a vested interest such as those with whom the enterpreneur would be competing, sometimes in furtherance of an ideological agenda such as radical environmentalism.A few days ago, I came across an article in the UK paper The Daily Mail entitled "Labour's 3,600 new ways of making you a criminal." The article highlighted "new criminal offences created by the Labour Government since it won power in 1997 - almost one for every day it has been in office." The crimes include selling a grey squirrel, importing Polish potatoes, selling types of flora and fauna not native to the UK, disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officer, offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day. Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne describes the plethora of new laws as 'legislative diarrhoea', saying 'In what conceivable way can the introduction of a new criminal offence every day help tackle crime when most crimes that people care about have been illegal for years. 'This legislative diarrhoea is not about making us safer, because it does not help enforce the laws that we have one jot. It is about the Government's posturing on punishments.'And then there are government policies that do not criminalize an occupation but destroy its ability to function, which achieves the same end. For example, according to an article in the Washington Post, The State Department is denying passports to people born in southern Texas near the border with Mexico if they were delivered by midwives, citing a history of birth certificate forgeries there for Mexican-born children dating to the 1960s, according to U.S. officials. If the policy of punishing those who use a midwife withstands a current challenge from the ACLU, then midwifery in much of Texas is de facto dead.An essential building block of prosperity is the ability to sell your labor to those who wish to buy it. It is onerous enough when the government stands between every buyer and seller in order to skim off profit that would otherwise go into retirement savings or into the mouths of children.But the thievery pales in comparison to the legal/political judgment that now has to be passed before an exchange can occur. People desperately need every honest option available to make a living; government is trying to make sure you don't have any options that don't involve its approval and its cut.