Quotation of the Day…

Tweet

… is from page 483 of volume 2 of The Collected Works of Armen A. Alchian (2006); specifically, it’s from Alchian‘s 1982 address (“Customs, Behavior, and Property Rights”) to the Peking Institute of Foreign Trade:

Prices are competed to that level at which people want to buy exactly the amount which it pays to produce at those prices – not more, not less. Prices that are controlled by politicians are typically set so low that people demand more than can be produced for those prices. That, not poverty, is what creates shortages. That calls for rationing, which is controlled by and gives power to the politicians. That’s the way it is in the United States when politicians take control.