Free Market Conviction from Regulation Experience

“*My whole business experience has driven me to free markets … Over the years in running businesses in a highly regulated New Zealand society we found the great majority of one’s energy was spent either running up and down to Wellington to get permits or licences, or alternatively it was spent with one’s lawyers trying to find ways and means around the regulations. The net effect of that was probably over half of the most creative energies in New Zealand were frustrated.*[29](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477308-556173400-29)”

“His experience in New Zealand in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s of an economy where decisions were made by bureaucrats as they granted licences or special privileges contributed to his strong belief that the free market is the most efficient allocator of resources. ‘Whenever you interfere with the market, you reduce the size of the cake; it’s very simple,’ he wrote in a draft manuscript. ‘New Zealand’s well-meaning instincts to dilute and distort the working of the market in the quest for equity had slowly brought the economy to its knees.’”