Yet Another Slippery Slope is Mapped

Brian Micklethwait writes about how easily voters are mislead into supporting (and then demanding) government do something about the problems of the moment:

The answer to this mania for the governmental micro-management of everything is that it has got to be perceived as resembling taxation and nationalisation, which at the moment it is not.

Taxes and nationalisation of business are both now understood to be costly, and a disincentive to doing whatever it is.

But governmental attempts merely to improve things, by exhortation, and then when that fails, by regulation, [. . .] are still regarded by too many ignoramuses as a cost-free way to improve the doing of whatever it is. But exhortations, and then regulations, are in fact very costly.

I'm always tempted, when linking to Samizdata articles to copy too much, and this is no exception. So save me from my temptation and go read the rest of the article.