Should...

A headline caught my eye this morning.

Why Food Should Be More Expensive

Posting out of and about the UK, the article laments the cheapness of food, whinges that the public is spending money that could be going to farmers on iPhones and holidays, plaints that almost none of the profits on food sales ends up in farmers' pockets... and echoes a journalist-farmer's call for the doubling of food prices.

Sigh.

As if there's been a moment in history where government coercion has made economies better.

When I hear the word "should" nowadays, it's overwhelmingly a demand for "someone" to change the landscape to benefit a favored group or harm a a disfavored group. Unless that change is a removal* of distortions (there are more than plenty such), these imposed-from-above changes don't make things better overall. Given that market outcomes under a robust system of individual and property rights are about as efficient as one can get, "shoulds" will make things worse.

Of course, the "should"ers don't care about the overall. The "food should be more expensive" has no problem denying his fellow citizens the freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labor, values the fruits of his* labor over theirs, and in the grand fashion of all tyrants, doesn't appear to have a problem saying that others' liberties should be quashed to achieve his preferred outcome.

Libertarians are not immune from saying "should," of course. Our "should," however, works a bit better.