According to law in New Jersey and Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gasoline. Is this a triumph of democracy or discrimination against the minority who would rather have the option? How would this issue be solved in a free market?
According to law in New Jersey and Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gasoline. Is this a triumph of democracy or discrimination against the minority who would rather have the option? How would this issue be solved in a free market?
According to law in New Jersey and Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gasoline. Is this a triumph of democracy or discrimination against the minority who would rather have the option? How would this issue be solved in a free market?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams from the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Welcome Daniel.
Thank you Dr. Paul.
Good.
We've solved all the problems of the world.
We've discussed foreign policy and monetary policy and economic policy and today though we're going to deal with something really, really super important.
Basically it is important to me, but it seems simplistic and that has to do with the right of the individuals in New Jersey to pump their own gas.
Have you thought about that issue?
It's interesting.
We talked about it.
I was in Oregon last year visiting my brother and we got to a gas station and I got out to start pumping.
He says, sit down, you can't do that here.
I thought that was interesting.
There's only two states in the nation that do that.
But you know, from what we see, 63% voted for it.
So doesn't the majority rule?
Yeah, they claim that's the number that people who really support this.
Well, I guess in New Jersey, the federal government has no right to interfere with 63% of the people of New Jersey taking away the right of an individual to go to a station and pump his own gas.
And that's what that is all about.
That, of course, is why most of us in the libertarian movement resent the idea of pure democracy where 51% can literally affect or take away some liberties and choices of the smaller number.
But obviously under our system, there shouldn't be a federal government intervention to set regulations.
Of course, that is pervasive through our society.
I mean, the federal government's always being involved, and someday somebody might go and do this.
But today, there's various reasons for this, and it's sort of, in a way, a remnant of the concept of the blue laws.
You know, religious people didn't want people to do certain things on Sunday, which sounds like a pretty good idea, but should that be by compulsion?
And what happens in a free society?
Are some of these problems solved without the government?
And we know a little bit about a company called Chick-fil-A.
You know, they have their own blue law, and they just closed down on Sunday.
So it's not like a free society couldn't solve some of these problems.
Presumably, you have people on both sides, some that would like to pump their own gas, and some that would rather have it pumped for them.
Maybe they are elderly or disabled, and maybe they're dressed nice for an event or something of that nature.
Can't the free market solve this issue?
In a way, it does.
I can recall going to a gas station, and there was an elderly lady there, a friend of mine, and she was there, and I wanted to know if I could help her.
And she was just still driving her car.
She was in her 90s.
And she says, no, they'll come out.
And they knew her, they sit there.
And so they came out very quickly and pumped her gas for her.
It's not like the world comes to an end if you take away choices.
What I don't like is this idea of compulsion and not allowing voluntarism, not allowing the market to work to solve some of these problems.
But that seems to happen all the time.
You know, when this first started happening where there was less help at the gas station before all the electronic equipment was available, in a way it was part of the inflation in the 1970s.
People had to cut back and prices were going up.
And what happens with inflation is standard living goes down in a seductive manner.
This was one of the services that people gave up.
But then along came technology and they made it easier to do it.
So the technology compensated for the inflation.
But changes would occur if they would just allow free choices and technology.
Of course, this is a throwback to the Lode Luddites of the 19th century England.
And it was a job issue.
It is still a job issue.
They think this will destroy jobs.
And back then, it was the textile industry.
They say, oh, if you have new and fancy equipment, we're all going to lose our jobs.
So they would deliberately go out and destroy equipment.
Do you think there'd be a way to keep jobs in the service stations if this were overturned?
Probably not.
But there'd be a lot more.
I think they would adapt.
But there's no net loss in jobs.
I mean, it's sort of like saying, you know, when the automobiles came in, what are we going to do?
All the blacksmiths are going to be unemployed.
Well, maybe they started fixing flat tires or something.
It's this idea that some central planner has to make these decisions.
And the market works very well.
The other thing most people forget about is when they look at these saving jobs and what the wages should be, minimum wages have an effect on this too.
They don't realize that these problems can be solved.
Seems like it would be a good job for a teenager over the summer maybe to do it for somebody else.
Well, I remember one station very well.
He had a teenager who had marginal abilities.
And there was a situation where I think the service manager allowed him to do it to help him out.
So there'd be all kinds of things like that.
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But there's too much compulsion by our society to have a law.
Not at $15 an hour.
I don't think they'd be able to.
Some of these cities are endorsing this minimum wage.
Yeah, that is the case.
But the market shouldn't be worrying about jobs and they shouldn't be worried about profits of big companies.
They shouldn't be worrying about bailing out the very wealthy and a system that protects the rich.
Actually, if you look at a market, the person that is most likely to benefit and generally does benefit is competition drives prices down.
It makes management work tighter and it makes labor work harder and the consumer is best served.
And it just happens that we're all consumers.
But it's too easy to look at it narrowly and say, well, if they don't allow this, there's going to be so many people laid off and there's people not working now for different reasons.
So we can't allow people to have freedom of choice.
It's good to always think about all these kind of problems with the non-aggression principle.
None of us as individuals can exert aggression against another person to have our way.
And government can't do it either, even if they theoretically think it would be beneficial, which means they're just inviting bureaucrats to make decisions and make things much worse.