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"With a few exceptions contemporary commentators on economic problems are advocating economic intervention. This unanimity does not necessarily mean that they approve of interventionistic measures by government or other coercive powers. Authors of economics books, essays, articles, and political platforms demand interventionistic measures before they are taken, but once they have been imposed no one likes them. Then everyone - usually even the authorities responsible for them - call them insufficient and unsatisfactory. Generally the demand then arises for the replacement of unsatisfactory interventions by other, more suitable measures. And once the new demands have been met, the same scenario begins all over again. The universal desire for the interventionist system is matched by the rejection of all concrete measures of the interventionist policy."
Ludwig von Mises, -A Critique of Interventionism-

Ludwig von Mises wrote A Critique of Interventionism in 1929. Nearly eighty years later, no one is heeding his advice. We are suffering an epidemic of interference. Politicians of all colours treat the persistent public response to every problem - "Something must be done" - not as the well-meaning but impotent lament of the concerned citizen, but as a call to action. Something, however ineffective or counterproductive, seems to be better than nothing. And so layer upon layer of intervention and market distortion is built up into an impenetrable wall of bureaucracy that stifles innovation, entrepreneurialism, competition and freedom in general.

It is time to fight back, to roll back the frontiers of the state. More is not necessarily better. What we want is small government applying a few fair, simple rules, not a bureaucratic behemoth running every aspect of our lives. The objective of the Picking Losers site is to expose the inequity and ineffectiveness at the heart of most government interventions.

Everyone will have been affected by government actions that did not achieve what they were intended to, or that favoured some groups or organisations over others. Please, tell us your stories, and perhaps, through weight of evidence, we can start to persuade politicians that their meddling is counterproductive. And as you submit your stories, remember that the purpose of this site is not to promote "more satisfactory measures" that compensate for the failures of previous interventions, but to argue for less intervention in general, for a few simple rules where government action is absolutely necessary, and nothing more.