Just before Christmas, the country of Hungary joined other European countries such as Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in banning Sunday shopping.
Although the Hungarian Parliament passed the bill on December 16, it isn’t scheduled to take effect until March 15 of this year. The legislation, which was supported by the prime minister but opposed by the economy minister, was promoted by its sponsoring lawmakers as insurance that shopping won’t “shorten the time that families spend together.” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the bill “protects Sunday as a Christian day of rest.” He also noted that the neighboring countries of Austria and Germany have similar Sunday-shopping restrictions. Very true. In fact, the German-speaking countries actually have the most limited shopping hours in Europe.
But like the Sunday-shopping bans in other European countries, the newly enacted one in Hungary is riddled with exceptions:
- Pharmacies, tobacconists, farmers’ markets, and stores on military bases are permitted to operate on Sundays. Bakeries can also open between 5 m. and noon.
- Retail shops at airports, train stations, gas stations, and hospitals also are allowed to operate as late as 10 m. on Sundays.
- Shops with less than 2,150 square feet of retail space aren’t covered by the law, provided that the Sunday work force consists of those who have at least a 20 percent stake in the business or who are immediate family members of the owners.
- The four Sundays preceding Christmas are exempt from the shopping ban, and all retailers will be allowed to open their doors once a year on a Sunday of their choosing.
Hungary’s National Association of Entrepreneurs and Employers opposed the legislation, warning that its passage would lead to about 20,000 layoffs and citing an Economics Ministry report that about 20 percent of Hungarians do the bulk of their weekly shopping on Sunday.
Americans who are used to 24/7 shopping at Wal-Mart Supercenters and crowded malls on Sundays express amusement at these European Sunday-shopping laws. Other European economic and political interventions in the market are likewise subject to the scorn of Americans. France is famous for its 35-hour workweek. Belgian workers are entitled to a one-year “career break” during their working lifetime during which time the worker receives an allowance from the government. Belgians also receive 15 weeks’ maternity leave, 10 days’ paternity leave, and up to 3 months for parental leave. Danish workers average 33 hours a week and have a right to at least five weeks of paid vacation each year. In the Netherlands, four-day workweeks are the rule, not the exception. At 29 hours, the Dutch have the lowest average number of hours worked per week of any industrialized nation. Italian workers are entitled to at least four weeks of paid vacation each year. Socialized medicine is the norm in the countries of Europe. The hours that stores can be open for business each day of the week are also heavily regulated.
But Americans who laugh at and mock Europeans for their interventionism, their socialism, their business regulations, and their nanny statism while expressing pride in America’s free enterprise system need to take a good, long look in the mirror. For example, Americans who want to shop on Sunday can generally do so — unless they want to buy alcohol or a car.
Most states (and cities and counties that are allowed a local option) restrict alcohol sales in some way on Sundays. In some states, and many counties, the sale of alcohol is prohibited for consumption off-premises on Sunday. In other states and counties it is just hard liquor that cannot be sold for off-premise consumption on Sunday. In many states, no alcoholic beverages of any kind can be sold before a certain time on Sunday. Alcohol consumption may be a vice, but in most states you can go to a strip club on Sunday as well as purchase tobacco and pornography.
It is illegal to buy a car on a Sunday in Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Maryland allows Sunday car sales in only three counties. Texas and Utah prohibit car sales over consecutive weekend days. In Michigan — the birthplace of the automobile — Sunday sales are restricted to counties with fewer than 130,000 people. Otherwise, according to Michigan state law,
It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to engage in the business of buying, selling, trading or exchanging new, used or second-hand motor vehicles or offering to buy, sell, trade or exchange, or participate in the negotiation thereof, or attempt to buy, sell, trade or exchange any motor vehicle or interest therein, or of any written instrument pertaining thereto, on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.
There are four observations about these Sunday-shopping laws that come to mind.
- The United States does not have a free market, does not have free-market capitalism, and does not have a free-enterprise system. The United States has a relatively free market, a comparatively free market, a regulated free market.
- Complaints, concerns, criticisms, and condemnations of the free market are misguided. Socialists, Democrats, liberals, and progressives who talk about market failures and the evils of corporations while blaming poverty and income inequality on laissez-faire capitalism and the unfettered free market are in reality opposing crony capitalism, a mixed-market economy, and the façade of the free market that exists in the United States.
- State and local governments are just as regulatory and interventionist as the federal government. Sunday-shopping laws in the United States are state and local laws. Remember, it is local governments that regularly require permits for garage sales and ban plastic foam containers, plastic shopping bags, and “big gulp” drinks. Government intervention at any level is distortive and destructive.
- To ban shopping or restrict the sale of alcohol or automobiles is to ban or restrict commerce, property, and freedom. The fact that these sales occur on a Sunday is irrelevant. Blue laws are the ultimate in victimless-crime legislation.
In a free economy, businesses determine whether they will offer family, paternity, maternity, or sick leave to their employees and how much they will offer them — not the government.
In a free economy, businesses determine how much vacation time to offer their employees — not the government.
In a free economy, businesses determine how many hours per week their employees should work — not the government.
In a free economy, businesses determine how many hours their employees must work before receiving overtime pay — not the government.
In a free economy, businesses determine what hours of the day and night they will be open — not the government.
In a free economy, businesses determine what days of the week they will be open or closed — not the government.
That does not mean that employees, families, unions, and other organizations have no say in the matter. It just means that those things are ultimately determined by businesses — not the government.
A free economy is an essential part of a free society.
