Left wing places often have laws that are hostile to business. This is the case in my own state of California.
Right wing places are often pro-business, but at the expense of being anti-market. For instance, many states protect car dealerships from competition in the form of direct sales by manufacturers. Consider the list of states that will not allow Tesla dealerships:
It’s hard to pin down exactly how many states truly don’t want Tesla to open dealerships. Sixteen states have laws on the books that would prevent that . . .
Here are those states: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.
Interestingly, 14 of those states voted for Trump, while only Connecticut and New Mexico voted for Clinton. So what’s a free market fan to do? Ideally you’d want to find some place with right wing views on capitalism and idealistic views on public policy. Unfortunately, those places are few and far between. Maybe somewhere like Utah or New Hampshire? Any other suggestions?
READER COMMENTS
Brett
Oct 16 2018 at 1:00pm
Salt Lake City’s fine, although I can’t vouch for our public officials. Day to day governance seems honest and okay, although there may be some corruption at the state level.
Thaomas
Oct 16 2018 at 4:07pm
Just favor interventions in the market that pass cost benefit criteria and oppose interventions that do not whatever state you are in. Generally both are cataloged as “anti business” when they are both pro (the ones that pass) or anti the ones that don’t) consumer; business is usually just a conduit.
Philo
Oct 18 2018 at 9:15am
To ‘favor’ or ‘oppose’ this or that measure is almost certain to be ineffectual. To effect a major change in your circumstances you must move. Scott’s question is: whither (where to)? (Of course, like Scott, you may have overriding reasons to put up with anti-market regulation.)
Matthias Goergens
Oct 16 2018 at 5:05pm
Sinogapore. Or Denmark?
What about Canada? (I don’t know enough about Canada.)
Whybrwsteuft yourself to the US?
Benjamin Cole
Oct 16 2018 at 9:48pm
Indeed, would it not be interesting to create some free-trade zones within the US?
Where almost nothing is regulated except for overt health and safety issues. No dumping nerve gas, for example, things of that order. Try it out for 20 years and see what happens. It may work or perhaps we will decide that the human depravity therein is too much to bear. But certainly worth a try.
Scott Sumner
Oct 17 2018 at 12:45pm
Matthias, Those seem like good choices, at least better than most countries.
IVV
Oct 19 2018 at 10:19am
Pro-business and pro-market? Or is simply being pro-competition and lowered barriers to entry enough?
michael pettengill
Oct 19 2018 at 2:27pm
New Hampshire is “pro business” ie, anti-tax, but opposes the things businesses want like a larger native supply of educated/skilled workers and the related more affordable housing.
To be anti-tax, lot sizes are large to limit population to high income workers able to pay large property taxes on large lots and houses to fund school – keep out the young workers and families just getting started in careers and having too costly to the local economy kids.
And anti-tax means not investing in the “free” public infrastructure businesses want, like roads, water, sewer, Internet access on the abundant vacant land. To build housing, the builder/developer must pay up front for building stuff to state government infrastructure standards, then bundling those costs into the price of the new houses.
New Hampshire produces emigrant kids and depends of old educated established workers who don’t cost the economy much, ie, ideally their labor costs is borne outside New Hampshire, whose kids leave New Hampshire to put their costs on other States, and then return 20 years later. New Hampshire depends on anti-business high tax Massachusetts to build good highways into New Hampshipre for workers and shoppers, plus funding good univerities to educate New Hampshire’s older skilled workers without costing the New Hampshire’s economy. But it needs the skilled workers who live in New Hampshire to pay higher than average Mass income taxes.
Gov Sunnu is campaigning on how he got the gas tax cut, but not how he slowed down road and bridge construction increasing traffic congestion for more decades of traffic congestion from recruiting workers to live in New Hampshire and work in Mass, and promoting Mass residents to spend money vacationing in New Hampshire and paying high rooms and meals taxes, buying booze from the government, to fund costly workers with kids.
Africa is much more pro-market than New Hampshire. The market, not government, pays for good roads, railroads, powerlines, educating kids, etc., in the many places where government is non-existent or powerless
Joe Munson
Oct 20 2018 at 6:38pm
There is an interesting tribal dynamic at play in Utah. People who are not Mormon hate all the laws that directly and indirectly tax things that are against LDS taboos (mostly alcohol and sex).
This causes them to use the language generally associated with Republicans and libertarians in public discourse, (people having the right to make their own choices etc) despite the fact that they are extremely democratic. I suspect this makes, for example, the liberal city government of salt lake city and park city less interventionist.
Utah doesn’t have the highest explicit taxes on sex/drugs but probably has the highest implicit taxes on them when you consider enforcement, liqueur license quotas, and liquor license requirements.
TMC
Oct 21 2018 at 10:53am
Agree with siding with pro-market. Both parties cozy up to big business too much at the expense of all business. I wish the Democrats has something similar to the Tea Party.
Joe
Oct 26 2018 at 3:36pm
Why do so many pro business places have horrible views on personal choices? Singapore and Utah have awful views on homosexuality…no one actually wants freedom.
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