Margarine Bootleggers Sent to Federal Prison … and other stories of what happens when the government plays with your food.
21st September 2011
When someone predicts that “our soils will become barren” and “the dairy industry will be destroyed,” it’s best to sit up and take notice; a wrathful god wielding some sort of cattle plague is probably in the vicinity. But in 1886, the year those threats were registered with the U.S. House of Representatives, the source of deadly danger wasn’t a peeved deity. It was margarine.
As Hayek pointed out, the worst monopolies are the ones created by the government.
I remember TV ads that compared margarine to ‘the higher-priced spread’; by law, they couldn’t say ‘butter’. Fortunately, we got better.
Making a cheap thing artificially expensive is a great way to create the conditions for a black market. And lo and behold, by 1915 the United States government was deep into the business of locking up folks like oleomargarine bootlegger Charles Wille in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. He was joined by one John L. McMonigle, who served nearly a year for spread-related crimes, and many, many others.
Can you say ‘Prohibition’? Can you say ‘War on Drugs’? I’m sure you can.
September 21st, 2011 at 15:50
Especially timely in light of the news that the Mexican cartels are estimated as reaping between 15 and 30 BILLION dollars a year smuggling drugs into the US.
September 22nd, 2011 at 03:11
And killing who knows how many hundreds of people a year doing it.