Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

One of the Right's whipping boys is “too many government regulations” but their arguments against regulations are unsophisticated & non-specific. The fact is that the success of America's Free Market commerce is primarily a result of carefully crafted regulations. For example, products & services with a high sensitivity to failure or monopolization require regulation, and abuse of resources important to us as a nation need regulations. Regulations are the rules-of-the-game, specifying the boundaries in which to play. If people have some kind of threat over their heads, even if it is unlikely they will ever get caught, most will not act illegally. Of course, there will always be crooks but by-in-large, people will mostly remain honest in the face of stricture, and will turn-in those they discover breaking the rules, whereas they would remain silent if the suspect act is not considered illegal.

Regulations are too prone to exploitation to be enforced by the private sector which is why they're under government auspices. Unfortunately, people in government are as tempted by power & money as everyone else, and the regulators can be captured, meaning they work for interests of the businesses they are supposedly regulating. They do this by imposing regulations not to protect the public but instead to protect the vested interests of the industry. They do this by making the barrier to entry into a market so high that struggling entrepreneurs are at a distinct disadvantage or blocked out completely by onerous requirements, extended review procedures & deniable neglect. But even with these deficiencies, regulations are absolutely required for a functioning democratic society, however there is definitely a fine line between persuasion & a boot-on-your-neck.