No one can honestly believe that Louisiana’s flower cartel is necessary to protect consumers from renegade flower sellers. Rather, it is a classic case of protecting favored groups at the expense of consumers and entry-level entrepreneurs.

Such is the state of economic liberty in America today. Across the nation, the basic right to earn an honest living is under attack. Legislators and bureaucrats are teaming up with entrenched special interests to create needless obstacles to countless entrepreneurs’ pursuit of the American Dream. In the past few decades there has been a nationwide explosion of protectionist regulations—while there were about 80 occupations with such barriers to entry in 1981, today there are over 1,000.

An Institute for Justice (IJ) case that recently attracted international media attention vividly illustrates the uncontrolled growth of occupational licensing and the outrageous lengths that a cartel will go to protect all facets of its business from the most harmless of trades.

Mercedes Clemens was threatened with thousands of dollars in fines and criminal prosecution unless she stopped . . . massaging horses. In Maryland two powerful groups decided to monopolize the growing field of animal massage by requiring all practitioners to spend four years in veterinary school—where massage is not even taught.

Suggesting that only people with veterinary degrees are capable of massaging animals is like suggesting that only people with medical degrees are capable of massaging humans. Preventing Clemens—who is a licensed human-massage therapist and certified in equine massage—from working in her chosen trade has absolutely nothing to do with consumer or animal safety and everything to do with the financial interests of the veterinary cartel.

In 2004 the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Powers v. Harris, “[W]hile baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry, dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments.” And for decades, following the instructions of the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state courts have stood by while legislators engage in this “favored pastime” at the expense of consumers and entrepreneurs.

Government Protects Special Interests

In the absence of meaningful judicial supervision, politicians have gone to almost any imaginable length to protect special interests. When a powerful lobby demands protection from competitors, governments have been all too willing to invent—and courts all too willing to accept—patently ludicrous excuses for shutting down entrepreneurs. A court upheld Louisiana’s florist-licensing scheme, for example, because requiring florists to take a test, which would be graded largely on the subjective beauty of their floral arrangements, might help protect the public from “infected dirt.”

The true victims of this new “favored pastime” are people like Clemens and countless other Americans, honest individuals whose lives have been turned upside down solely to protect the politically powerful. Such examples are seemingly endless.

In Texas, all computer-repair technicians must now become private investigators. “If you’re investigating or analyzing data, then you should need a little more credentials than someone who just repairs computers,” the legislative sponsor said. The PI license requires a criminal-justice degree—or a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed private investigator. If a consumer knowingly takes his computer to get repaired by an unlicensed specialist, he faces thousands of dollars in fines and a year in jail. This law no doubt benefits special interests, but those benefits come directly at the expense of ordinary repair technicians and their customers.

A new law in Philadelphia will make it a crime in the coming weeks to talk about the Liberty Bell for money without the government’s permission. Unlicensed tour guides will be subject to hundreds of dollars in fines for talking about the place where the Declaration of Independence was written. Perhaps the most well-organized cartelization effort underway in the United States today is in the interior-design industry. A powerful faction of insiders has already put thousands of its competitors, mainly middle-aged and elderly women, out of work.

The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) represents less than 3 percent of all designers, but its members have designated themselves as spokespeople for the entire industry. In over 30 years of lobbying, ASID has never presented a single shred of evidence to support its extraordinary claim that literally “every decision an interior designer makes affects life safety and quality of life.”

ASID has been relentless in teaming up with legislatures coast to coast in its strategy for total cartelization. IJ has documented these efforts in a study titled “Designing Cartels.”

Such laws exist today for one reason: Our nation’s judicial system fails to protect the right to earn a living. Courts have decided that this fundamental right—economic liberty—is simply not as important as other rights, and less-important rights are thus not subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny and rarely are afforded protection under the law. If the government can simply dream up a conceivable reason for violating economic liberties, even if that reason is based on no facts, the regulations are generally upheld. Amazingly, courts will even help by inventing their own hypothetical rationales for economic protectionism. This system does not just stack the deck—it gives the politically powerful a hand full of jokers.

Thankfully, entrepreneurs are fighting back. Taxicab drivers, African hair-braiders, sign-hangers, waste haulers, casket sellers, and others have battled the odds (with help from IJ) to strike down occupational-licensing schemes.

Mercedes Clemens’s lawsuit has already caused one of the licensing boards to backpedal. The Philadelphia tour guides, now represented by IJ, had a hearing in federal court on October 6. In Texas, computer-repair technicians and interior designers are standing up for their constitutional rights.

F. A. Hayek famously wrote that “the great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.” That is precisely what the fight for economic liberty is all about.

Most visitors to the former Crown Colony, now known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), would think that little had changed there. And they are partly right. Little has changed on the surface. Unfortunately, there has been a constant erosion and corrosion of the basic institutions Beijing promised to leave unsullied and intact.

It is clear that China’s authoritarian leaders hope that they can subvert these institutions to serve their own ends. On the one hand, they implemented a rigged electoral system that dilutes the democratic process and marginalizes reformists who promote democracy. At the same time, Beijing appointed a congenial but administratively challenged chief executive for the SAR to ensure compliance with their demands.

This would have been bad enough. However, there has also been a weakening of the judicial system. It bears pointing out that the openness and transparency of Hong Kong’s legal system was perhaps the most important underpinning of the material success and freedoms enjoyed there. Ironically, with the exception of Jimmy Lai, Hong Kong’s tycoons are too busy cutting deals with Beijing to realize what is happening. Most of the super-rich do not understand that the rule of law allowed them to become wealthy.

They are relying on their personal connections, guanxi in Chinese, to arrange favorable treatment from corrupt mainland officials. The bad news is that as these practices become perfected they will inevitably seep into business dealings in Hong Kong. The good news is that the forces of globalization assure that corrupt, authoritarian governments will join the Suharto regime in Indonesia in the dustbin of history.

A recent interference with Hong Kong’s affairs was revealed in a warning issued by Wang Fengchao, an official of the central government’s Liaison Office in the SAR. He insisted that the Hong Kong media not publish views advocating independence for Taiwan, declaring that journalists have a responsibility and an obligation to support reunification of China. In addition, the media should not disseminate information that might be interpreted as advocating the “two states” theory articulated by former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui or any others that might encourage independence. At the same time, Mr. Wang urged the SAR government to move quickly to enact an anti-subversion law based on Article 23 of the Basic Law, which authorizes national-security legislation.

A State Matter

In his warning, Mr. Wang asserted that his proposed limitations had nothing to do with press freedom because Taiwan is a state matter that should be dealt with differently from other news items. As if Beijing’s continued human rights abuses were not enough, Mr. Wang’s comments provide ample evidence that Communist Party officials do not understand the nature or the value of individual rights and freedoms.

The media has now been instructed that it must handle Taiwan-related news differently. Compliance with this demand would be tantamount to self-censorship and undermine editorial independence as the foundation of press freedom. In effect, the media would be reduced to being a tool to promote policies of the current ruling party.

At present, the Basic Law guarantees press freedom along with freedoms of speech and publication. It would be a stretch to imagine that restricting such freedoms is consistent with the spirit of Article 23.

These misguided actions are further corrupting the Basic Law and serve to make more implausible the terms offered to the Taiwanese people for unification under the conditions of autonomy promised to Hong Kong. At the same time, a crackdown in Hong Kong would destroy investors’ confidence in its laissez-faire institutions.

In another instance, Beijing violated the spirit of noninterference in Hong Kong’s internal affairs by indicating its displeasure with a ruling that would grant an extended right of abode to some mainland citizens. In response, the SAR government reversed the decision and issued a statement acknowledging Beijing’s right to reinterpret the Basic Law.

The insensitivity of China’s authoritarian leadership to Hong Kong citizens’ wish for greater economic and political freedoms sullies its own image. At the very least, it casts a pall over expectations of Beijing’s willingness to uphold international agreements that it considers inconvenient.

Although Marxism may have been sidelined for the moment, China remains in the grip of a Leninist power structure that is rigidly authoritarian. In its present incarnation the leadership in Beijing is not only going against the tide of human history; it also violates Lenin’s vision of anti-imperialism. In response to the colonial imperialism of his day, Lenin supported the rights of self-determination for all people. This should presumably include people in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Beijing insists on disregarding the expressed preferences of Chinese people in both places. The current leadership should build on the successes of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw the modernization of China’s economy. It should yield to the inevitable forces of history that demand a modernization of China’s political system.

Christopher Lingle is a professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín and author of The Rise and Decline of the Asian Century.

Dan Rostenkowski is on the comeback trail, Although convicted of and jailed for misusing his office, the former Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has become a senior statesman of sorts, dispensing political advice to businesses and his former colleagues. Obviously neither crime nor punishment is an impediment to success in Washington.

Still, the number of convicted criminals in Congress seems remarkably low. After all, events in Washington appear to offer definitive proof that politicians are congenital criminals. How else to explain the lying, cheating, and stealing that permeate the legislative process? How else to explain the unending looting of the body politic justified in terms of the public interest? Indeed, the alternative hypothesis, that they really are that stupid, is almost too horrifying to contemplate. Obviously, the American judicial system is failing to do its job.

Some members of the Washington, D.C., police force inadvertently made this point two years ago when they blocked off streets around the Capitol in anticipation of the President’s State of the Union speech. Instead of using the standard markers, “Police Line–Do Not Cross,” they put up yellow tape emblazoned “Crime Scene.” Unfortunately, the cops failed to arrest any of the miscreants.

Since most of what America’s unindicted and unconvicted legislators do is criminal, perhaps voters should be more forgiving of those who get caught. That seems to be the practice in other nations.

In India, for instance, criminals frequently run for office. Of course, they don’t always win. Dharam Pal Yadav was defeated for reelection in the recent election, He had been charged with 25 crimes, including six murders. An aide explained: “It all depends on what you call crime, If it’s a political crime, it’s not really a crime.” Dan Rostenkowski could not have put it better.

Taiwan has created a positive incentive for criminals to enter politics. Officials usually aren’t prosecuted for their crimes. The police must get permission from the legislature, provincial or national, to arrest a member. Such permission is rarely granted.

“We have a saying,” explains political science professor Yang Tai-shuenn: “If you get elected, you become an official. If you don’t get elected, you go to jail.” At one point 136 of 175 members of the country’s provincial assembly and the two largest city councils had been convicted of various offenses; another five had been indicted. An incredible 312 of 858 county and city officials had been convicted and another 112 were under indictment. Three-fourths of the speakers and deputy speakers of city councils had been indicted.

Many of them were charged with buying votes, a tradition in Taiwan. Others were indicted for allegedly rigging bids and abusing their office in the sale of state property. Some were charged with more usual crimes. Explains Mr. Yang: “Many people involved in the underground and mafia in Taiwan tend to run for public office to get away from punishment.”

And also to improve the efficiency of their criminal operations. Chao Yung-mao of Chinian University says that gaining power is “a way to upgrade their business. They need political [influence] to protect them.” Rather like in America, where businessmen typically hire politicians to protect them from their competitors.

Immunity for criminals is not completely unknown in America. To prevent politically inspired arrests, many states along with the federal government exempt legislators from arrest on their way to vote or while the legislature is in session. A decade ago Senator Roger Jepsen of Iowa used such a provision of the U.S. Constitution to avoid a Virginia traffic ticket; alas, his constituents were less forgiving than Taiwanese voters and sent him into early retirement. An aide to Virginia’s lieutenant governor later claimed immunity to avoid a drunk driving charge. A Virginia legislator used the same tactic to win dismissal of a charge of indecent exposure.

But it would be better to move in the other direction. Instead of immunizing legislators, we should criminalize more of their actions. The very same state of Virginia has a law, rarely enforced, holding school board members responsible for any overspending. In 1990 the King George County Board of Supervisors threatened to petition the local circuit court to remove members of the local school board for malfeasance after the school board ran a $500,000 deficit in a $13 million budget. Three members, who had been appointed by the supervisors, resigned.

Similarly, in 1996, after the Virginia Beach School Board ran a $12.1 million deficit, local Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Humphrey called a grand jury to investigate the financial mess. It indicted two school board members; seven others resigned rather than face charges. “None of these people deserve to go to jail, but they screwed up,” explained Mr. Humphrey. “It happened on their watch.”

Such an approach would have wide application at the federal level. When (not if) Congress breaches the spending caps agreed to only last year, the Justice Department should sue legislators for violating the budget provisions. When (not if) Congress creates new spending programs after proclaiming its commitment to smaller, more efficient government, taxpayers should file a class-action lawsuit against the miscreants. When (not if) the loudest proponents of federalism, individual liberty, and similar values violate their promises and expand Washington’s power, outraged citizens should force them to resign. But it’s not enough to simply toss politicians out of office. Maybe Humphrey is right to believe that incompetent school board members don’t deserve to go to jail. But most congressmen do. Forget term limits. Let them serve the full sentence.

If this seems too harsh, then consider an alternative. Instead of prosecuting politicians, send them away with full pay. For many legislators there is no higher priority. Last year Turkish legislators resisted a call for new elections because they wanted to remain in office for at least two years in order to qualify for generous government pensions. It would have been simpler to have paid them off if they promised never to darken Ankara’s steps again.

Public service would be an honorable occupation if government performed the limited role of creating a framework for a free society, thereby safeguarding individual liberty. But in today’s world, where government is simultaneously an obnoxious meddler and violent thief, becoming a member of the political class almost automatically turns one into a professional criminal.

So let’s treat politicians accordingly. Let them choose–between resignation, exile, or jail. Then the rest of us can live in peace.