Ideological Promiscuity

Alex Whitlock disagrees with Reynolds, who argues that the FTC should investigate grocery stores who maintain shopper-card programs and use two-tiered pricing:

As irritating (and perhaps even dishonest) as it is, it's the capitalist way. Kroger has the right to charge as much as they want for vermicelli. They could have just doubled the price outright if they had wanted to. Instead, they put terms on the low price, giving you the option to pay more or stay at the same price. If you don't like it, you are free to go elsewhere.

The Reynolds position on shopper-card programs is somewhat inconsistent with what is generally his libertarian outlook on most policies. Here, he's advocating government interference with what should (as Alex points out) be private affairs of the market. However, he's consistently critical of the idea of virtually any governmental interference with, say, drugs or biotechnology. And he's just confusing on the matter of homeland security (i.e. he constantly complains the current state of affairs is a "joke" -- but isn't clear whether he actually favors a more intrusive governmental approach or a less intrusive governmental approach).

These may be examples of what Matt Welch calls Reynolds's "ideological promiscuity," although I don't think Welch meant the term quite the way I'm using it.

[Posted at 20:20 CST on 08/01/02] [Link]