Government is on the side of the little guy, protecting him from the
rich and powerful. That's what many people believe -- after all, that's
the sermon preached in our schools and colleges, and parroted by
politicians, particularly those of the leftist Democratic persuasion.
Let's look at a couple examples, and you decide.
Funerals are very costly so the Revs. Nathaniel Craigmiles and Tommy
Wilson, two black ministers in Chattanooga, Tenn., started a casket
business and sold caskets at modest markups over cost to their
parishioners. The typical funeral home mark up on caskets is 200 percent
to 300 percent. The Craigmiles and Wilson casket business made money for
the church and gave bereaved parishioners lower prices. But last year,
Tennessee's Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers closed their
business, and threatened them with fines and imprisonment for selling
caskets without a funeral director's license. To legally sell caskets,
Craigmiles and Wilson would have to spend thousands of dollars attending
school to learn how to conduct funerals and prepare a corpse for burial.
They simply sold caskets.
Fortunately for Craigmiles and Wilson, there's the Washington-based
Institute for Justice, the only public interest legal organization that
fights for people's right to earn a living. Under the leadership of its
director, Chip Mellor, and associate director, Clint Bolick, the
Institute for Justice sued the Tennessee Board of Funeral Directors and
Embalmers, as well as the state's attorney general, charging that the
licensing provision constituted a violation of the Privileges or
Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. Last August, the U.S. District
Court for Tennessee's Eastern District ruled that Tennessee's licensing
statute was unconstitutional.
One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out the purpose
of Tennessee's licensing statute. It's to keep competition out so
funeral directors can charge high casket prices, or as Institute for
Justice attorneys say, in jest, "Protect the public from low prices."
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There are hundreds of statutes that stifle competition and allow
incumbents to charge higher prices. A taxicab license to own and operate
one taxi in New York City has been as high as $160,000. High taxi
license prices also exist in other cities. License laws prevent people
from hair braiding. There are license laws that prevent people from
operating van services or even shining shoes.
You might think that the "champions" of the little guy such as the
U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, Urban League, NAACP,
the Democratic Party and black politicians would be in there fighting
for the little guy's right to earn a living. You'd be absolutely wrong.
If anything, they are on the side of the powerful vested interests.
That's the side on which their political/financial bread is buttered.
The Institute for Justice has laid down the gauntlet in its struggle
against restrictions on people's right to earn an honest living. It now
sponsors a Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law
School. Pat Lee, the clinic's director and former lawyer for McDonald's
Corporation, says the Clinic has a twofold purpose: that of providing
fledgling entrepreneurs in poor areas of the city practical skills to
deal with licensing restrictions and regulatory bureaucracies, and at
the same time give second- and third-year law students practical
experience.
There's little glamour to the work of the Institute for Justice. Its
mission is simply that of protecting people's God-given right to earn an
honest living. Little businesses, whether it's braiding hair, shining
shoes, owning a taxi, street vending or other kinds of self-employment,
have always been a route out of poverty. Today, many of those routes are
blocked by powerful vested interests.
I say three cheers for the Institute for Justice. They deserve at
least our moral support in their struggle to promote economic liberty.