Silly walks for government subsidies? It may seem like a crazy idea, but as demonstrated by a new video, it’s just as crazy as the government intervening with food production or education.
The video, created by Learn Liberty, shows what happens when the government decides to use subsidies as a form of intervention. While the government provides subsidies for things like food and education, Art Carden, an assistant professor of economics at Samford University, decided to see if the government would subsidize silly walks, referring to the comedy sketch “The Ministry of Silly Walks” from Monty Python.
“I haven’t figure out a way to get paid for silly walking unless I could get a government grant,” Carden said.”If there were government subsidies for silly walks, if they gave me money to develop new walks, for example, or promised to buy a certain number of walks I created, there would be more silly walks than there are now. Isn’t that a great idea?”
Carden then went on to explain that while subsidies for silly walks may seem, well, silly, the same logic applies for other government subsidies, such as food, education or green energy.
“We’ll get more silly walks with subsidies, but they’ll be worth less to people than they cost to produce,” he said. “That means the subsidies would waste resources.”
Carden explained that, with food subsidies for example, food then costs more to produce than it is worth.
“Governments are really bad at figuring our which companies and technologies to subsidize,” he said. “Even if we grant that markets may produce too little education and too little green energy, this hardly implies that government intervention will make matters better.”
Watch Carden’s explanation of subsidies.
