Comment by bawolff
3 years ago
Some regulations are good, some are bad. Some just have purposes different from what people assume. Saying its impossible to regulate anything is just as stupid as saying its possible to regulate everything.
3 years ago
Some regulations are good, some are bad. Some just have purposes different from what people assume. Saying its impossible to regulate anything is just as stupid as saying its possible to regulate everything.
Yet there is an extreme aversion to “de-regulation” as if all regulation is good and any attempt at reforming bad regulation is reactionary and evil. The regulatory state is ever-expanding and contracts only rarely in very isolated instances.
Isn't an expanding regulatory state an inevitability as population growth explodes and companies gain ever-greater power?
More people and more powerful companies means more abuses of power, which we solve (or try to solve) with regulations. And deregulation is often a simple power grab by unscrupulous companies with the help of crony politicians.
These aren't universal truths, but I think it does start to explain why regulations expand more than they contract.
That is a very generous take. My alternative explanation is that the incentives of government agencies are misaligned with helping society. A government leader is judged based on the size of their budget and the number of employees. They will not get rewarded by shrinking their budget and head count, even if decades of advancement in technology and understanding have made that the optimal choice for society.
Contrast that with private business which is forced to adapt to change. They always strive to increase productivity by increasing value while decreasing costs. The exact opposite incentive exists in the government.
I do have a solution to this conundrum - I think we should give leaders a bonus that is a percentage of savings. For example, if an agency has $200 million budget, give the director 10% of all money saved every year. So if they successfully shrink their budget by $10 million, give them a $1 million bonus.
But as it exists today there is no amount of budget that can satisfy the needs of the state.
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