"The Institute for Justice, in a recent paper (Streets of Dreams), reported that of America's fifty largest cities, nineteen allowed mobile vending carts to stay in one spot for only short periods, twenty prohibited setting up near brick-and-mortar businesses selling similar goods, and thirty-three established No Vending Zones in well-travelled areas. And in Atlanta, the city actually set up a corporate street-vending monopoly, forcing former cart vendors to rent kiosks for $20,000 a year. That's $1,667 a month in additional overhead for a business model that previously had almost none. … In Kurt Vonnegut's story "Harrison Bergeron," a Handicapper-General imposed handicaps on those that were smarter, better looking, or more talented than average so that nobody would feel bad. In this case, the Handicapper-General works for downtown business establishments, imposing a $20k penalty for being more competitive."
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Original Language: English
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Kevin Carson, "When the Mafia Can’t Compete With the Chamber of Commerce" at C4SS ( 2011)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
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Harrison Bergeron
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