In calling for the elimination of all 527 political adds George Bush is validating the theory of government intervention put forth by the late Austrian school economist Ludwig von Mises. Mises argued that interventions into the free market and restrictions on liberty will inevitably generate unintended consequences that will bring forth greater interventions and greater restrictions on liberty, which in turn will start a new cycle of unintended consequences and further restrictions to fix the problem.
Recent campaign finance reforms restricted free speech and people’s rights to use their resources in political process as they see fit. The stated purpose of this was to restrict the influece of so-called ?soft money?–a legal construct created by previous campaign finance laws.
A “loophole,” i.e. a glimmer or freedom, still left in the way that we can spend money to get out our views, has created these 527 groups such as Moveon.org and the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. Now President Bush is calling for the elimination of this loophole. No doubt, if he succeeds there will be further unintended consequences that will bring forth calls for further restrictions on our liberty.
This is why Mises argued that the middle ground between liberty and socialism, i.e. interventionism, is unstable. All interventions must either be repealed or succumb to further interventions, leading to socialism and the elimination of all freedoms.
