Is there really a free market economist in Australia who believes that having quarantine services to our island continent to help prevent things like foot and mouth disease, rabies, screw flies, giant African snails, and other agricultural diseases and blights of many kinds which are clearly of great economic cost in other countries from getting a foothold here is a case of mere "rent seeking" and should be abolished?
Yes there is, and his insurance argument is even nuttier, as people in the thread have tried to show.
Amazing.
I think he is also known for being sympathetic to the completely free flow of people between countries. As wildly impractical and unpopular as this would be, at least you can argue that that would have some humanitarian benefit - no more fleeing masses of humanity held up for years in refugee camps. But I wouldn't have thought the likes of the giant African snail, or various bacteria and fungal spores, have quite the same claim to freedom of international movement.
No, this is a case of ideology stupidly trumping common sense. That is all there is to it.
1 comment:
Yes. I would say that quarantine is about 80% rent seeking and 20% actual quarantine.
The question for the economist would be - is it better to have current costly produce and none of these diseases, or would it be better to have cheaper produce and some of these diseases?
You need to weigh up the costs and benefits, not simply assume that if there is a cost it is automatically bad.
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