The Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule Is Alive And Well In Missouri

Thank goodness the fine people of Missouri are being protected from excessive competition among moving companies.

From the Pacific Legal Foundation:

…it’s illegal to run a moving company without getting a state license, but when you apply for a license, the Department of Transportation notifies the existing companies and gives them the chance to object. When they object, you’re required to go through an expensive, time-consuming hearing process to determine whether there’s a “public need” for a new moving company. Yet there’s no law or regulation that defines “need,” so the entire procedure becomes a roadblock in the way of hardworking people…

I already made one allusion to the anti-dog-eat-dog rule from Atlas Shrugged today, but pardon me if I can’t help making the allusion again. Because what happened in the book is exactly what is going on in the moving industry in Missouri.

Existing companies have banded together to protect themselves from new competition by instituting a process whereby new companies can only be started with their permission. Or, at least, only started after said competition runs a lengthy and expensive gauntlet of objections from existing companies.

It would seem to me that the true measure of “public need” for a new moving company, or any new company, should be whether or not that company can survive. Which is really a private matter between the owners and his/her creditors and investors.

When capitalism is illegal, people suffer.