Agriculture, energy, and the environment. In the halls of power, these are policy areas overrun with lobbyists, special interests, cronies, and would-be do-gooders. They each have ideas of what people should be told to do, made to support, and allowed to choose. To people in the wide world outside of politics, however, these areas have more basic implications for them, their families, and their businesses: food, power, and life.
At Locke, the Center for Food, Power, and Life works to protect and expand freedom in these areas of vital importance to North Carolinians. History has shown over and over that when individuals and families, entrepreneurs and visionaries, and friends and neighbors are free to choose, to compete, and to work for what’s in their own best interests, we all end up enjoying more and better options, lower prices, and more ability to take care of our other needs, too. History is also full of warnings about what happens when central planners in government dictate their pet notions of what really serves people’s best interests: their societies end up mired in corruption, destitute, poorly served, and unable to meet their needs.
People Are the Primary Stakeholders, Not Special Interests
The crucial issues of ensuring more food freedom for North Carolinians, more access to markets for our farmers, cheaper and more reliable energy for our families and businesses, the better environmental outcomes that result from freedom, property rights, and market choices, etc. — they are far too important to hand over to short-sighted bureaucrats and politicians.
Too often in the public-choice wrangling among “stakeholder” cronies and special interests, policymakers can lose sight of who the main stakeholders are, the ones with the most at stake: we the people. Overregulation, favoritism, incentives, disincentives, protectionism, vanity projects, outdated rules and laws, and other anticompetitive measures are all things that can needlessly stand between our producers and consumers and keep North Carolinians from enjoying greater growth in these vital areas.
Our Goal
Through research, briefs, discussions, illustrations, collaboration, and shared insights, CFPL aims to expand freedom in the policy areas of agriculture, energy, and the environment, which we believe will enhance North Carolinians’ lives by better access to food, power, and more of life’s needs and wants.