Comment by kelnos
2 days ago
It's unclear exactly what you're arguing, but I think if you are arguing that, because of the unavoidable substantial friction caused by regulation, we shouldn't have any regulation of industry at all... I think it's trivial to find examples where banning all regulation of industry would make the world a much, much worse place. Much worse than the friction.
> It's unclear exactly what you're arguing
Actually, it's perfectly clear to me.
> we shouldn't have any regulation
Nope, he's not saying that at all. He's just saying that any regulation (no matter how necessary, well intended or even perfect it is) has a cost. And that cost is accumulating across all regulations.
Furthermore, that cost is easily supported by large incumbents (big fans of regulation, btw) but it hurts startups the most. Thus the more regulations a market has, the fewer startups will have. Fewer startups means less competition. Less competition means less innovation, fewer products and higher prices. We can easily see this effect unfolding in the housing, education or health markets.
Bottom line is: we must take those second order effects of regulation into consideration when talking about it.