It depends of course. But in America, which was established to empower each individual to make their own decisions, the state should only regulate those individual activities that might harm others such as violating property rights. This attitude presumes that each of us cares more about our wellbeing than does anyone else and know better how to achieve it taking account of our differences in tastes, interests, and risk preferences. It has resulted in a society of more prosperous and happier members.
This can be contrasted with the view that the average person is not intelligent enough or self-motivated enough to maximize their potential and needs to be guided by smarter, wiser people.
A society in which each individual enjoys the maximum freedom of choice hardly means that the government has little or no role in our wellbeing. In addition to providing public safety, shared institutional and physical infrastructure development, and the adjudication and enforcement of contracts (the rule of law), government can contribute to the provision of the knowledge to help inform the individual choices we each make. I want to review two very different areas of government involvement that have reflected the above conflicting attitudes of the government’s best role—monetary policy and public health policy.
Section 8 of the US Constitution gives the federal government the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof,…” Our twelve Federal Reserve Banks and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System carry out that mandate via a system of market determined prices of goods and services and an inflation target of 2%. While I would prefer a monetary policy in which currency was issued or redeemed at a fix price for a hard anchor (traditionally gold) in response to market demand (currency board rules), the Fed has behaved very well within its inflation targeting regime over the past two years (after keeping its policy interest rate too low until two years ago).
A successful inflation targeting policy requires keeping inflation expectations anchored to the target (2% in the US) so that economic wage and price decisions are made in light of that expectation. But todays’ policy actions are only fully felt over the next year or two (what Milton Friedman called “long and variable lags” in the effects of policy). Federal Reserve policy is implemented largely by setting the rate at which it supplies the money it creates to the market. If it sets that rate below the so called neutral rate, it must supply money to keep the rate low. If it sets the Fed Funds (and related) rate above the neutral rate, it must absorb money from the market to keep the rate high. Setting its policy interest rate is the lever by which it controls the rate at which the money supply grows. Each Federal Reserve President and Governor must evaluate all available information about economic activity most likely over the next one to two years and determine in like of that what monetary growth is most likely to result in 2 percent inflation over that period. If market participants believe that the Fed’s choice is most likely to result in achieving the stated target in the future, their wage and price decisions will anticipate that inflation and thus bring it about.
It should be obvious that if Fed officials are honest it attempting to achieve their target and explain as fully as they themselves understand the prospects to the public and the public has confidence in the Fed’s commitment, this is the best that can be done. In fact, the Fed deserves high marks for such transparency in our uncertain and evolving world. Each person and firm make their own forward looking decisions in light of their best guesses of future conditions. The Fed’s guidance is the best and most the Fed can do to bring or keep inflation on target.
When governments don’t trust “the people” to make their own decisions (they are not smart enough or are two lazy or whatever), they must mandate the “proper” behavior. Consider our approach to the public’s health during the Covid pandemic. Whether government should offer advice and provide information on what is known about a disease such as Covid-19 is complicated by the fact that we should not be free to expose others to communicable diseases. In the case of Covid the government’s understanding of its nature and best protection grew and evolved over time. But the US public heath agencies lost credibility from the beginning by telling well intentioned lies.
“In early March 2020, Dr. Fauci said ‘there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.’ In the same interview he said people could wear masks if they liked, but they wouldn’t get perfect protection, and it would further pinch what at the time was a short supply of masks for doctors and nurses.” PolitiFact | Marco Rubio says Anthony Fauci lied about masks. Fauci didn’t.
But more to my point, CDC officials thought that their shut down and isolation mandates would be more effective than allowing individuals to determine how best to protect themselves and others. The subsequent evidence suggested that they were wrong. Any benefits were outweighed by very substantial costs. Read the following articles and studies for examples.
“I explore the association between the severity of lockdown policies in the first half of 2020 and mortality rates. Using two indices from the Blavatnik Centre’s COVID-19 policy measures and comparing weekly mortality rates from 24 European countries in the first halves of 2017–2020, addressing policy endogeneity in two different ways, and taking timing into account, I find no clear association between lockdown policies and mortality development.” https://academic.oup.com/cesifo/article/67/3/318/6199605?login=false
“The most restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID-19 are mandatory stay-at-home and business closures. The most restrictive nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID-19 are mandatory stay-at-home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less-restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs)….
“After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country…. While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less-restrictive interventions.” January 2021 study
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