BrianGarst.com

The Huffington Post has a story about a chef at a high-end restaurant who apparently ran into a bit of social media controversy when she questioned whether or not crying babies should be tolerated at the restaurant.

Tbl brings 8mo.Old. It cries. Diners mad. Tell ppl no kids? Subject diners 2crying? Ppl take infants 2 plays? Concerts? Hate saying no,but..

— Gachatz (@gachatz) January 12, 2014

At the end of the story, a poll asks, “Should upscale restaurants like Alinea ban babies?” None of the available answers were satisfactory to me.

The great thing about a free market system is that it accommodates all answers! It shouldn’t ultimately matter to the folks at Alinea what people who don’t or never will patron Alinea prefer. They should serve their customers or people they want to be their customers by catering to their preferences. And the types of people that do patronize Alinea, moreover, might have a different preference than people that prefer other restaurants.

Because we live in a somewhat free society that still has at least a somewhat free economy, people who want to eat without crying babies and people who want to take their children to nice restaurants can all get their wish without needing to fight about it. This is not the case for other questions where one-size-fits-all answers are imposed on everyone, such as how to best educate children or provide healthcare, which is why those decisions tend to be much more contentious and the cause of social acrimony.