That is not true. At certain points in history, e.g. WWII, rationing was in effect wherein the government forcefully replaced the market with rationing stamps and created limits on how much each family could consume to ensure there was enough for the war effort and each household [1].

It's crazy to me how quickly people forget such interventions and then think that any government action of such a nature is unprecedented. It's not.

If, for example, we start to have COVID decimate migrant farm labor who pick our crops and often live in very tight quarters, then we might end up in a situation with systemic food insecurity. At that point, it might be become more reasonable for more extreme interventions to happen.

Similarly, society would be better served if people who are under forced quarantine orders due to exposure COVID were provided meal delivery services so they don't have to leave their house (ideally designed to minimize moral hazard or cheating). Providing those services will most likely come through governments using market services. But we shall see.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Stat...

There are caveats on both the "wherever" and "whomever" from the legal perspective in the US (and probably most countries).

"wherever": there's a legal concept of "disparate impact" wherein even if all of the policies themselves are neutral, if the policies end up impacting certain groups of people (in a protected characteristic) more than others, then the company in question is considered guilty of violating anti-discrimination laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

"whomever": businesses cannot refuse service based upon multiple; e.g. you can't refuse to only serve males vs. females, whites vs. Asians, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

Yeah, and a group of people in a common geographic area are free to bargain collectively to ensure that businesses don't take advantage of them. In fact, it's so core to human society that the idea is universal.

I think it would be really interesting to see what would happen if cities explored more of using their regulatory powers to get better deals for their citizens.

You may initially recoil at that framing of it, but really most regulation can be thought of in those terms. Look at environmental regulation, which forces a cost on companies that they wouldn't otherwise be paying to serve some area's interest in protecting the environment. Look at licensing for any profession. Take contractors for example, the people of an area, via their elected representatives, decide that they want to force all contractors to meet some form of licensing (and insurance) requirements if they want to serve any of the people in that area. Now, particularly the insurance one, puts a burden on the contractors who wouldn't otherwise get it, but it protects the ones who would (from being undercut in an unsustainable way) and it leads to an industry that serves that area better than it would otherwise.

Not at all. You can say "no shies, no service", but you can't say "Whites Only" anymore, for an extreme example.