You'd think someone who works for "Fortune" magazine would have more have more respect for free people and free markets. But on Morning Joe, today, there was "Fortune" editor Leigh Gallagher boosting Michael Bloomberg's nanny state. Gallagher approvingly quoted Mayor Mike to the effect "sometimes you have to do not what people want you to do. You have to take people by the hand and lead them."
Gallagher also, incredibly, confused the ability of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs to offer products that people, exercising their free will, find appealing with the ability of politicians to use the force of law to bend people to their whims. View the video after the jump.
Note also Gallagher's comments about Steve Jobs. Does she not understand that Jobs had no power to force people to buy his products? As for Gallagher thanking Bloomberg for banning smoking in bars because she liked not getting smoke in her hair: if she's right that there are "a lof of people" who feel the same way, then no law is needed. There would be plenty of bars, out of the pure proft motive, offering a smoke-free setting. But if there are also people who enjoy smoking in bars, why should we prevent businesses from catering to their preferences?
LEIGH GALLAGHER: Can I just say something about this drinks thing? So, we talk a lot about this show about leadership and the lack of leadership. And the mayor himself has come on here and said you know, sometimes you have to do not what your people want you to do but what--you have to take people by the hand and lead them. In business, we talk about the way Steve Jobs managed things. He doesn't do what consumers want. He takes you and yanks you and gives you something you didn't know you needed. And I think this is a case of that. I think that if you look at the obesity rates, if you look at-- I also think it might be overturned because the reasons the judge gave, the loopholes, doesn't apply to refills. Those seem to be minor to me. Look at what the mayor did with smoking, that seemed just as outrageous back when he instituted it. And I thank him every day when I go to a bar--well, when I used to go to bars and the next day you wake up and your hair doesn't smell like smoke. There were a lot of people that didn't want that to happen.
