A standard claim these days is that free markets, those things that arise from folk just getting on with things themselves, can and should be improved by the ministrations of the bureaucratic classes. Because those professionals are able to take into account all the needs of stakeholders, the value to society as a whole, in a manner that voluntary coooperation just doesn’t manage.

Recreational marijuana has been legal in the state since 2018. Supporters of legalisation argued that changing the law would deal a blow to drug cartels and generate huge tax revenues.

However, four years later law-abiding operators struggle to make ends meet while the black market is thriving. About 75 per cent of cannabis consumed in the state comes from illegal sources, industry figures say. They blame taxes, too much regulation and a failure to tackle illegal competition, which is free from red tape and able to offer cannabis at much lower prices.

So that’s that contention put to the test and it fails, doesn’t it?

Given that dope dealing is something mastered by all too many teenagers we’d generally think that it’s not all that difficult but it does seem to be beyond the wit of those professional classes.

Now imagine an entire economy festooned with these sorts of ministrations about stakeholder interests and value to society as whole. Not, exactly, what we desire is it?

The argument against that progressive control of the economy is, clearly enough, observation of what they achieve when they try it.