i know that austrians are fierce opponents of govt measures that distort markets like corporate and non-corporate welfare, subsidies, bailouts and etc. however ive seen some hit the nail on the head on the other issue with such measures. the fact that even in voluntary form there are still “bad ideas”. here i quote mises
“being ill is not a phenomenon independent of conscious will. . . . A man’s efficiency is not merely a result of his physical condition; it depends largely on his mind and will. . . . The destructionist aspect of accident and health insurance lies above all in the fact that such institutions promote accident and illness, hinder recovery, and very often create, or at any rate intensify and lengthen, the functional disorders which follow illness or accident. . . . To feel healthy is quite different from being healthy in the medical sense. . . . By weakening or completely destroying the will to be well and able to work, social insurance creates illness and inability to work; it produces the habit of complaining—which is in itself a neurosis—and neuroses of other kinds. . . . As a social institution it makes a people sick bodily and mentally or at least helps to multiply, lengthen, and intensify disease. . . . Social insurance has thus made the neurosis of the insured a dangerous public disease. Should the institution be extended and developed the disease will spread. No reform can be of any assistance. We cannot weaken or destroy the will to health without producing illness.4”
art caden has a similar articles of how gas coupons send false signals in the marketplace. now i understand that state enforced handouts are far more dangerious, namely because they are coersive. but wouldnt one say that if a community voluntarily sets up a goods hoarding facility and then hands out goods at a below market price during shortages is in a way distortive towards the market?