Comment by pdonis
5 hours ago
> the wide body of regulation we've grown to require for a smooth and healthy and productive society.
If you actually believe this is true, I have some sad news for you. Does the term "regulatory capture" mean anything to you?
> those awful technocrats
If you actually believe the "technocrats" have the knowledge required to craft regulations that actually are a net benefit, again, I have some sad news for you.
Your solution is?
Align congressional incentives with reduction in the size of the US code and regulations.
The current US code, printed as a book, could not be read in five lifetimes of daily 9-5 reading. Make reading the law aloud a requirement of their job -- they're not permitted to stop until they've completed it, except they may sleep at night and they may assemble to vote to remove laws which are no longer needed. Failure to read the laws at the start of their tenure results in being held in federal court for the duration of their time in office.
There is no magic solution to the "problem" of "how to dictate rules to a large society that will keep things smooth and productive". The problem is fundamentally intractable if you insist on looking at it that way.
There is another option, which is to not dictate rules at all, unless you absolutely have to in order to have a civil society in the first place. For example, we have laws against things like murder and theft and fraud, because you can't have a civil society if those things aren't deterred and punished.
But the vast majority of the laws and regulations we have in place now are not doing that. They're attempts to micromanage from the top something that fundamentally cannot be micromanaged from the top. Nobody has enough knowledge to do that. So we should stop doing it.
Giving up is not a strategy. Regulations are painful in that they obviously reduce economic productivity, but not having any at all is pretty much guaranteed to be a disaster.
For example, allowing poisonous chemicals in your food supply or drinking water is insane. Unless you are OK with the free market sorting all that out (after your family dies horribly).
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