Adam Smith: Libertarian in a Foxhole

By Alex Tabarrok.

"In a piece on conservative liberalism, Dan Klein looks at the response of conservatives like Smith, Hume and Burke to crises. For example, when the harvest was poor it was common for England to adopt free trade to import grain. Adam Smith argued that what was good in bad times was good in good times:

The distress which, in years of scarcity, the strict execution of those laws might have brought upon the people, would probably have been very great. But, upon such occasions, its execution was generally suspended by temporary statutes, which permitted, for a limited time, the importation of foreign corn. The necessity of these temporary statutes sufficiently demonstrates the impropriety of this general one. (WN 536.34)

I was reminded of some modern examples:

MedEcon: The federal government will now allow all physicians and other medical personnel to practice across state lines in order to battle the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

or

KXXV: Governor Greg Abbott has waived state laws that prohibit trucks from the alcohol industry from delivering supplies to grocery stores.
He says this will provide grocers with another private-sector option to keep their shelves stocked during the coronavirus pandemic.

Or how about this “hilarious” headline from the FDA

FDA: FDA Provides More Regulatory Relief During Outbreak, Continues to Help Expedite Availability of Diagnostics"