Is California Moving Toward Government-Owned Electricity?

Commentary In 1929, almost a century ago, the great economist Ludwig von Mises published “A Critique of Interventionism.” It’s written in plain language and is free online. He described how government intervention in the free market is not socialism, but eventually “leads to socialism because government intervention is not only superfluous and useless, but also harmful. … It lowers labor productivity and redirects production along lines of political command, rather than consumer satisfaction.” He died in 1973 at the good old age of 92 and was the teacher of Friedrich von Hayek, who won the Nobel economics prize in 1974. I bring up Mises because he could have been writing about California’s electricity market, which has been dysfunctional for three decades and well could end up entirely run by the California government. That’s actually what was called for in a June 2 editorial in the Los Angeles Times titled, “Californians don’t have to accept skyrocketing electric bills. Here’s how to fight back.”...