You make some good points but isn’t the fundamental issue here that if some people want to work and others want to shop, who is the government to “regulate” this mutually beneficial and agreeable exchange?

The common arguments FOR restricted trading are 1) that smaller operators will be put out of business by the larger ones; and 2) that people will be “forced” to work late nights, Sundays and so on.

For #1, I don’t disagree with that. It’s highly likely that, in the face of increased competition, smaller retailers will be forced to close up shop. Then again, no one forces these smaller shops to close; they close because it’s not profitable enough to stay open.

But is this a bad thing? The cheaper prices brought about by this competition provide everyone in the economy with additional income to spend elsewhere (the savings they now make they can use to acquire more goods than they could before). This savings will then be spent in other areas, increasing demand, replacing the jobs that were “lost”. So not only have we lost no jobs, but we’ve all gained additional products, or wealth (of course, government intervention in the form of rigid wages, union barriers to entry and so on can restrict or delay the reallocation of labour resulting in unemployment).

As for #2, no one is forced to work late nights or weekends; people who choose to work do so because they prefer employment to other circumstances. I don’t see any justification for regulation that forces people to do what they would not do when given a free choice.

Remove the regulation and let the people show us what they really want through their own actions.