Liberals Should Know Better

Liberals Should Know Better is the first in a series of essays Arnold Kling is writing from his libertarian-conservative perspective for his liberal friends.

In it, he addresses the recent Maryland law forcing Wal-Mart to spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care:

If the Wal-Mart law is for the benefit of Wal-Mart workers, then why is it that they are not the ones rejoicing over its passage? Why does the law specify a spending percentage, which would seem to be of greater interest to Wal-Mart's competitors? Why did the pressure for the law come from people who do not work at Wal-Mart?

Liberals see the market as an arena in which evil corporations inflict their greed on innocent victims. I wish you would see that motives matter less than consequences. I wish you could see that greed is at work when laws are passed that regulate markets, because regulations always produce winners and losers. I wish you could see that those winners and losers are often not who you think they are. I wish you could see that competitive behavior and free choice are forces that operate in the market as a check against greed. Finally, I wish you could see that greed is most difficult to restrain when it is exercised through the medium of government.