Price Controls are Kinda Sorta Bad

An editorial by the New York Daily News Editorial Board provides an example of the nonsense that can be written when principles are abandoned. In the piece, the board agrees with the idea that rent control exacerbates the problems it is allegedly intended to remedy. It then cautions the Supreme Court, which may be considering a challenge to New York City’s rent control regime, to not “strike the entire system on sweeping constitutional grounds….” The board’s reason is that price controls, of which rent control is only one example, are only kinda sorta bad.

The board writes,

Government sets limits on prescription drug prices. It sets minimum wages. Sin taxes try to ensure that the price of a pack of cigarettes, for instance, never falls too low.

There’s a huge difference between limiting the maximum a poor person pays on basic shelter and dictating the price tag on a pair of jeans, a computer or a tomato. Put another way, price controls are not created equal.

The board doesn’t bother to explain what that huge difference is because no difference exists if one thinks in principles. When principles are abandoned, one can only look at superficial differences.

Price controls, no matter to what they are applied, restrict the freedom to produce and trade. They force individuals to trade on terms to which they do not voluntarily agree. This is true whether the price control is applied to jeans, a computer, housing, or anything else. It is true of all price controls. But the editorial board can’t see the forest for the trees.

The fundamental issue isn’t which price controls are good and which are bad. The fundamental issue is whether price controls are a proper function of government. They aren’t, and it doesn’t matter what values those controls are applied to.

The board wants us to believe that there are exceptions to the freedom to produce and trade. However, when one advocates exceptions to a principle one has abandoned the principle. What remains is a loose guideline that is ignored when it proves inconvenient.