Opposition arises every time new technology emerges. Often it is promoted by those whose livelihoods would be most directly affected. Their short-term, vested interest focus might grant them temporary security, but it does so at the expense of the well-being of everyone else.
Read MoreRed Flags or Green Lights?
Red Flags or Green Lights?
By Lawrence W. Reed
When you hear the term “red flag law” today, you think of rules or regulations that allow governments to seize guns from people who pose a danger to others. But back in the late 1800s, its meaning was very different.
The first red flag law in the older sense of the term dates to 1865 in England. The object was not guns but cars.
In their 2006 book, Controlling Environmental Pollution, P. Aarne Vesilind and Thomas D. DiStefano offered a glimpse of the law’s purpose:
Shortly after the first steam-powered and very noisy horseless carriage appeared in England, the British Parliament in 1865 passed the famous Red Flag Law, which required a man to precede a horseless carriage on foot, carrying a red flag by day and a lantern by night. The primary aim of the law was to warn people about the loud noises produced by the vehicles. This law, in fact, was credited with slowing the development of automobiles until 1896, when it was repealed.
Who do you suppose lobbied for these regulations? None other than horse-drawn carriage operators and the railroad industry. In so doing, they secured the world’s first speed limits on roads, a mere four miles per hour in the countryside and just two mph in towns and cities.
Use of one’s political connections to put sanctions on competitors or get privileges for oneself is ancient, and it’s not capitalism (for you dummies who think it is). This is in keeping with the observation of the late Austrian School economist Murray Rothbard, who advised that if you want to know who lobbied for something, just answer the question, Cui Bono? (Latin for Who Benefits?).
Also known as the Locomotives Act of 1865, the law applied to railroads too. It stated as follows:
Firstly, at least three persons shall be employed to drive or conduct such locomotive, and if more than two wagons or carriages he attached thereto, an additional person shall be employed, who shall take charge of such wagons or carriages; Secondly, one of such persons, while any locomotive is in motion, shall precede such locomotive on foot by not less than sixty yards, and shall carry a red flag constantly displayed, and shall warn the riders and drivers of horses of the approach of such locomotives, and shall signal the driver thereof when it shall be necessary to stop, and shall assist horses, and carriages drawn by horses, passing the same.
In 1896, Parliament abolished the red flag requirement and raised the speed limit to a gusty 14 mph. Thank goodness that too was eventually lifted and we can all go a lot faster today!
In 1894, the U.S. state of Vermont passed a version of the English law (repealed in two years) to deal with automobile noise. Illustrated Motor Cars of the World points out that “To protect the nervous systems of horses, and perhaps people’s ears as well, the Vermont law required a man to walk several hundred feet in advance of a moving car.”
The Vermont law stated that “[t]he owner or person in charge of a carriage, vehicle or engine propelled by steam” [except for rail vehicles] must have a “person of mature age [...] at least one-eighth of a mile in advance of” the vehicle, to warn those with livestock of its imminent arrival. At night, it required the person to carry a red light.
“But maybe we had it lucky in Britain,” opines a British historian named Rick Falkvinge. In 1896, as Parliament was getting rid of its red flag statute, the legislature in the state of Pennsylvania passed a bill requiring all drivers of horseless carriages, “upon chance encounters with cattle or livestock” to follow this procedure:
(1) immediately stop the vehicle,
(2) immediately and as rapidly as possible disassemble the automobile,
(3) conceal the various components out of sight behind nearby bushes
until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified.
No kidding! Fortunately, Governor Daniel Hastings nixed the bill. In 2019, author Jason Torchinsky reflected on this proposed lunacy that the Governor had enough good sense to veto:
It's suggesting that a cow or horse is going to be so freaked out that it won't even be enough to just shut the car off—you have to take the damn thing down to bits, and then hide the bits, like a horse is going to see a flywheel or a crude early carburetor and get immediate flashbacks to the noisy, stinking terror he just encountered.
Opposition arises every time new technology emerges. Often it is promoted by those whose livelihoods would be most directly affected. Their short-term, vested interest focus might grant them temporary security, but it does so at the expense of the well-being of everyone else. The Luddites of the early 19th Century, for example, fought against the adoption of mechanization in the textile industry but who in their right mind today would advocate a return to the days when your grandmother made your clothes by hand?
The so-called Neo-Luddites of our time exhibit a similar anti-technology ignorance. The more extreme among them would shut down much of the material progress of the last century and consign us to living on small farms. The same bias is prevalent among the more radical climate alarmists. They spend their time pushing to shutter whole industries instead of thinking creatively about how future technologies might allow us to adapt to whatever climate change there is.
When self-interest isn’t the motive, opposition to technology is little more than misplaced faith—that is, faith in problem-creating state coercion instead of faith in problem-solving free people. Entrepreneurship, innovation, and open and dynamic markets have raised living standards, conquered ailments, and prevented calamities far more effectively than politicians with their penalties, guns, and prisons. Historically, the new technology that private sector activity fosters ends up producing far more benefits than setbacks.
Much has been said and written about technology and its opponents, but this comment from the autobiography of financier Bernard M. Baruch expresses my sentiments best:
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Amen.
(See the author’s new essay, “I, Smartphone,” for an examination of the technology that goes into the handheld device almost everybody owns.)
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(Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia. He blogs at www.lawrencewreed.com.)