Labor and Energy Regulations Take Us To the Cleaners

My clothes dryer went bust the day after Christmas, leading to one of the more common frustrations we face in the modern nation-state.

You see, there was a time when ones dryer broke, the owner faced two options: have it repaired or buy a new one. The owner would weigh the costs and benefits of each, make a decision, and then move on to other things. But those days are gone. Now when an appliance goes on the fritz, a dreaded third option is increasingly being foisted upon us: that of fixing it yourself.

Now, self-repair was probably a more common choice back during my grandfathers generation. But as the economy expanded and per capita incomes grew, the time spent repairing ones own appliances meant less time working in the market. Toward the end of his career, my grandfather the owner of a sheet metal business in Waukesha, Wisconsin probably paid others to repair his appliances so he could better focus on serving his own customers.

This is one example of how the expansion of wealth made possible under capitalism leads to the creation of new jobs that did not exist previously. We dont know what alternatives to appliance repair these repairmen would have chosen as careers had the repair market for labor not opened up and even this development would never have occurred without entrepreneurs from previous generations introducing appliances to the home in the first place but we can be sure it would have brought them less benefit. If this were not (apodictically) true, they would have chosen those alternatives instead of their actual careers in appliance repair.

With my own broken dryer, I could have dipped into savings and bought a new low-end model for about half a grand, but this was an option I wanted to avoid. I could have contacted a repair service, but the cost could have easily reached the price of a new machine.

Both outcomes result from restrictions on market forces that hinder both the supply of dryers and availability of repair. Energy Star compliance standards on appliances have increased production costs so as to cartelize this industry while providing only negligible benefits in terms of power efficiency. Meanwhile, labor market interventions, especially on the entry-level side of the market, have reduced the supply of repairmen, thus allowing existing repairmen the ability to claim higher wages than they would otherwise. For people (like myself) who do not live in a big city, even finding a repairman can be difficult.

The end result: The effects of government failure were reaching into my home and savings. Worse, they were forcing me to embrace the dreaded third option.

I chose to fix my dryer myself.

This decision was not made gleefully. I am not a tool guy. My comparative advantages tend not to include ratchet sets and elbow grease. Whats more, I resented being forced to teach myself skills my grandfather and his generation gladly gave up when market forces developed to a point at which they could. My situation smacked of societal devolution poking its cloven hoof into my laundry room.

But I plowed ahead and soon learned I was far from being alone in my predicament and that, in fact, huge masses of individuals across the country are being forced by similar artificial circumstances to take on last-minute appliance repair training against their will.

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Labor and Energy Regulations Take Us To the Cleaners