Regulation = bad = nonsense

[PETRUS]

From http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/03/regulation-bad-nonsense/

If there is one thing that bugs me it is the emotional resonance the anti-regulation loon-bin has with your average punter. The current media regulation debate is just one example. Regulation = bad. Don’t ask any more question please.

Very few of the loudest voices grasp that the economy is fundamentally built on regulation. Maybe if I took away the word regulation and simply used the term ‘enforceable common customs’ we might go some way to understanding the nature of coordination and the way regulations are ENABLERS of large scale coordination of production.

<snip>

The best way to think about regulation is like rules in sport. Without rules there would be no sport. Without regulation there would be no economy.

You might be thinking that the economy came before regulation. But as I said earlier, regulation is simply the formalised way of expressing enforceable common customs. No one would say that any human society, from the most primitive tribes to the largest modern metropolises, has functioned without enforceable common customs. These days we just need to write these customs down and have them approved by parliament if we wish to enforce them...

Read more: http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/03/regulation-bad-nonsense/

[Purplehazed]

1. The author of the article is naive

While true that the very laws that allow businesses to exist are "regulations". The shear volume of regulations on business today certainly costs businesses money and potentially keeps business from expanding or starting in the first place. If you think that elected officials create regulations, you're wrong. Legislative bodies create acts/laws that are broad. Agencies create the complex regulations that have to be complied with. And who runs the Agencies? Political appointees and their cronies. Regulations have the power to crush some businesses while giving advantage to others.

I'm not making the argument that all regulations are bad. Regulations and the Agencies that create them should be be monitored with the same critical vigilance that we monitor congress with.

[HereSince1628]

2. Regulatory agencies came into existence because Congress often lacks expertise

that is required to actually implement workable rules and standards of operation.

I think there would be wide agreement that:
Congress knows exceedingly little about nuclear power.
Congress knows exceedingly little about chemistry and the toxicity of pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals etc.
Congress knows exceedingly little about the global atmosphere or the multiple-use management of public lands.

Yet Congressional representatives may be very knowledgeable about the laws, the politics, and the business forces involved with these subjects. I would say many of the political appointees are rather similar in their backgrounds

So, generally speaking, Congress and the Secretaries and Directors who are political appointees must, and do, depend heavily upon the expertise of the career professionals in the agencies and departments to get the details right and to do the actual writing of the regulations that govern complex and technical activities.

The nation needs workable, enforceable regulations, that produce outcomes desired by Congress and the people.. Congressional reps whose experience runs from corporate attorneys to high school wrestling coaches frequently, probably usually, lack the technical understanding to make such things happen.

In some cases, , Congressional reps, who are much more familiar with the adversary system of the courts and popular opinion, basically use those processes to conduct warfare with the findings of the educated experts, whose opinions frustrate the desires of campaign supporters. And that practice has come to be known as the GOP WAR ON SCIENCE.

Generally speaking, where a regulatory agency also has power to direct business activity or impose penalties, such as in Labor, the power of the regulatory agencies is checked by the courts. For example, a regulatory decision by the National Labor Relations Board that isn't accepted by an employer can be kicked into the court system for final adjudication.