"It's the paperwork that killed me"

As I noted back in February, the Institute for Justice is currently fighting for Boston entrepreneur Erroll Tyler's right to earn an honest living free from unnecessary and arbitrary government interference. Yesterday's Boston Globe reports on another victim of the city's regulatory overreach: Ken O'Brien, the homeless proprietor of a Harvard Square book stall:

[T]he Massachusetts Avenue stand is closing today, and with it goes one more quirky piece of Harvard Square. Ken O'Brien, who has sold or given away tens of thousands of books since opening nearly three years ago, is giving away the last of his stash.

O'Brien, the first and only homeless person to belong to the Harvard Square Business Association, said he is tired of fighting City Hall.

His story is a long, involved one that includes getting arrested twice, obtaining various permits, and being moved onto subway grates by the Cambridge superintendent of streets, only to have the MBTA say he couldn't set up on its property. When he tried to open a book business in a nearby church, he found he couldn't get liability insurance. When he tried to get a tax identification number, he said, "they wanted all sorts of paperwork" that he couldn't provide, especially since he had a half-dozen other homeless people working for him on commission. Now his peddler's permit has lapsed, and he said he has grown weary of filling out forms.

"It's the paperwork that killed me," O'Brien said. Decades of living on the streets have weathered his face beyond his 55 years. He says he ran a similar business in New York and was never hassled.

Rest of the story here. 

[Thanks to Bob Ewing for the tip.]

Comments

[NolongerTofuSushi]

First, bitches!

[NeonCat]

What a chump. Did he think America was some kind of laissez-faire land of opportunity or something, where someone with grit and determination could just contribute to the economic well-being of the nation?

[ClubMedSux]

It's shit like this that leaves me dumbfounded as to why people think that lefties are all for helping the poor while libertarians are all shills for Big Business.

[J sub D]

It's shit like this that leaves me dumbfounded as to why people think that lefties are all for helping the poor while libertarians are all shills for Big Business.

I hear ya. See the FDA Regulation Threatens Cigarette Alternatives thread for an example of libertarians recognizing corporate rent seeking.

[Brett Stevens]

This country is geared toward serving idiots because they vote. Therefore, all public services have a CYA mentality that includes boatloads of paperwork so someone else is always to blame.

[Ska]

When you cite NY as a hassle free place to do business, you must be in Massachusetts. Or Pennsylvania.

[anon]

Bah! Reason's just a shill for small book.

[Libertymike]

HA...HA...HA....

The "Rule of Law" in action.

[P Brooks]

Think of all the bureaucratic jobs "created or saved" by forcing this sap to chase his tail for three years.

AFSCME thanks you, Mister president!

[Dr. K.]

That's classic People's Republic of Cambridge for you.

From their perspective, O'Brien should be grateful they only wanted their pound of flesh in paperwork. And relativistically, I'm included to agree - I'm involved in a clusterfuck of a building repair whereby the city has literally increased the cost and time to repair by an entire goddamn order of magnitude.

[?]

Worst state ever.

[Andrew Dobbs]

Holy crap, I bought a book from that guy. A one volume history of the Reformation. I live in Texas but a buddy was going to grad school at Harvard and I saw him set up. I've seen such street booksellers before and it always seems like a great, revolutionary kind of life--living without bills, making the money you need to get by with something you love. I'm sure it isn't too romantic for those doing it, but I've done similar things in my past and it is harrowing in direct proportion to its freedom. This isn't the state going after capitalism, this is an attack on the free market. This isn't about regulation of business, but a state binding of an individual's capacity to pursue his own vision of happiness. In a word, bullshit.

I hope the IJ can do something to help the hobo booksellers, buskers and other street artisans of this country, and I feel a great deal of solidarity with Mr. O'Brien. Still, going up against the liberal regulatory power structure in New England (Massachusetts for chrissakes, CAMBRIDGE at that!) is unlikely to end well for the advocates of the free. Keep us posted, maybe we'll get some honest to god HOPE for a change around here...

Hey, since I'm up on this post so early I gotta be shameless. If you dig willfully-impoverished anarchist free market anti-capitalist mumbo jumbo and some unique perspectives on this post-Revolutionary world, check out our blog The Deliverators.

[John C. Randolph]

One more greedy capitalist prevented from exploiting workers! Why, he admitted himself that he intended to employ other people! Thank heavens that the enlightened bureaucrats were able to put a stop to this before he inspired others to act on their own without the blessings of the state.

-jcr

[tarran]

Crap, I browsed his stalls on several occasions.

People who haven't been to Cambridge cannot understand the visceral hatred of commerce held by most of the residents - an attitude that is also held by the government officials there.

Cambridge used to be a manufacturing center, and easily could have continued as one if not for the regulations that strangled it. Take away Federal grants to Harvard university, MIT and some pharmaceutical companies doing R&D there, and the city's economy would implode like a star collapsing into a black hole.

Many of the residents have no conception of living off the fruits of honest trade. Many of them think that looting and forcible transfers of wealth are the basis of civilization.

[FTG]

"It's the paperwork that killed me," O'Brien said.

O'Brien, welcome to the Socialist State: You could not have summarized it better.

People who haven't been to Cambridge cannot understand the visceral hatred of commerce held by most of the residents - an attitude that is also held by the government officials there.

Oh, I understand perfectly - I live in Santa Cruz, CA, home of the biggest busybody assholes in the world. Both places cannot be very different.

[JB]

It's too big a hassle to start a business in this country. Why bother?

[jtuf]

Boston's harassment of Tyler is just plain depressing.

[RONCTONCULOUS]

check out our blog The Deliverators.

No.

[Mad Max]

The guy claims he panhandles during part of the year. He doesn't claim that the Cambridge authorities hassle him *then* - no, only when he tried to earn an honest living. Harassing him for panhandling would be a violation of his rights - would he have have been in a two-year battle with the local bureaucrats if he had merely been begging on the streets?

[Colonel_Angus]

Do I have the right idea when I refer to Mass as California on the East Coast? Illinois is California in the Midwest.

[DJP]

As a small business owner handling the necessities of tax accounting and maintaining a separate corporate entity for liability and regulatory reasons, I spend at least a month a year of my productive time purely dealing with government created bullshit.

[parse]

Curious that not long a go we had a long thread full of people heaping scorn on the idea that a homeless person might own a cell phone, but no one seems to think it's impossible for a homeless person to own a business.

[anarch]

When they throw the book at stalls holding paperbacks, only booksellers will be thrown, stalled, and held back by paperwork. Or something.

[Butts Wagner]

Curious that not long a go we had a long thread full of people heaping scorn on the idea that a homeless person might own a cell phone

If I'm not mistaken, the majority of that thread was spent debunking the idea that homeless people cannot own cell phones.

[Ray Butler]

I'm amazed that you people can always pull an irrelevant anecdotes out of your ass.

[Gurdjief Steiner]

I met with Ken a couple of days ago and am visiting cambridge from washington state. I asked him about his business and he explained to me in his own terms what had been going on and what his current situation is now.

It seems to me that there is a greater and deeper issue which relates to the rights of cities to tax by default any transaction or c=exchange that happens between citizens.

I think this shows that legislatively there is a motive towards

'if it isnt something we have the right to regulate and profit off of (yet) ... then we will figure out how to make it profitable for _the state_'
(...and their own job security.)

I see no harm coming from him engaging in business on an empty citizen owned piece of land. He does not obstruct traffic. He offers a service which is recycling books at a set rate and so is not profiteering with the books.
Anyone can come buy them as commodities or collectables for $2 a piece and resell on ebay.

He seems a model of democracy, do it yourself, innovation, dedication (2 court harassments, metro transit, getting jerked around by EVERYONE) and we ALL know what a pain in the butt it is to deal with the paperwork already without added legal and legislative harassments added on top.

I applaud him and to me he is an example of what makes america the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I would rather a thousand homeless booksellers like Ken than most of the burocrats in the government legislatory mess of paperwork for the sake of paperwork and legislation for the sake of profiteering.

At least he is an honest business man. And when an honest business man is precluded from doing business on a technicality ... the technocrats will have won and freedom will be swept under the carpet.

In the immortal words of arnold schwartzenneger

"Hear me now... listen to me later.."

Here is a link to my note / blog on my day in harvard square and meeting ken.

http://www.facebook.com/note.p.....2931601493