Economics

Over at Forbes I talk about IP law and how it hurts the little guy.

Everything Scott Walker has done up to this point was only a foreshadowing:

Tucked into Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) much-discussed budget was a little-noticed provision to overhaul the state’s regulation of the beer industry. In a state long associated with beer, the provision will make it much more difficult for the Wisconsin’s burgeoning craft breweries to operate and expand their business by barring them from selling directly to restaurants and liquor stores, and preventing them from selling their own product onsite.

The new provision treats craft brewers — the 60 of whom make up just 5 percent of the beer market in Wisconsin — like corporate mega-brewers, forcing them to use a wholesale distributor to market their product. Under the provision, it would be illegal, for instance, for a small brewer located near a restaurant to walk next door to deliver a case of beer. They’ll have to hire a middle man to do it instead.

But more noteworthy than the provision itself is how it was enacted. The provision was quietly slipped in the massive budget legislation without any consultation from independent craft brewers, who are justifiably outraged by it.

That’s via Radley Balko, who has more thoughts on the “Prohibition-era artifacts” that are wholesaler requirements.

It’s always weird for me to travel to states with bizarre alcohol laws. Some states only allow alcohol sales out of licensed liquor stores. Others require government-run liquor stores. Still others only allow beer sales in bars (where you buy single bottles to go) or by wholesalers.

This is simply ludicrous. This doesn’t prevent drinking and may indeed encourage drinking and driving. It does create monopolies and stifle competition, however. So if you have a deep and abiding fear of quality craft brews, Scott Walker is your man. Buy the man a nice, cold flavorless Budweiser.