Free market radicals forget that regulations actually exist to keep markets fair and protect private property.
I could make a business where I steal product from a competitor and undersell them. The free market solution is that people would be willing to pay more for unstolen goods so they could raise the price to cover their loss. I wouldn’t want to drive them out of business, so I couldn’t steal all their product. The market finds the happy equilibrium. No regulation necessary.
This sounds crazy, but there are a lot of markets that operate like this in one form or another. Wage theft is one good example. Pollution is something that steals a little bit of equity from a lot of people. Regulation protects private property.
Free market absolutist are childish morons.
It’s ok, though. Now that the free market has learned it’s lessons, there’s no chance self regulation will go wrong in the future. None at all!
They are going to behave now. Pinky promise. 🥹🥹
should have had a panel with cops getting paid vacation for murdering people
No see everyone will abide by the non aggression principle! /s
I can’t believe anyone thinks self regulation would work.
My favorite: leaded gasoline.
If I believe in the Invisible Hand hard enough, some day I’ll get that reach-around I’ve been longing for.
Crucial Add:
The US Supreme Court
You forgot the Baby Formula bacterial infection leading to shutdown of the largest plant in North America and widespread shortages. We actually had federal regulations which were repealed after the companies lobbied in favor of self-regulation.
I’m not sure this is true. Current US federal food and drug law has been in effect since the 1970s (for specifics, I’m thinking 21 CFR 211, which was codified 1979-ish) and it hasn’t really been repealed so much as it was never very explicit and rarely enforced, in part because of the difficulty of enforcing something so vague.
Example: The law clearly says, “you must have a written procedure in place to prevent contamination,” But it leaves it up to the manufacturer to determine what that procedure should be. In contrast, some of the EU legislation (EUDRALEX) is much more prescriptive: “you must do X, Y, and Z to prevent contamination in a multi-purpose facility.”
What little legislation was in place as US law before 21 CFR 211 was worse.
It’s also worth noting that much of the US’s regulation via agencies like the FDA is actually released as “guidance for industry.” Or to paraphrase, “don’t be a freaking idiot about things, but we can’t legally prosecute you for it if you don’t.” That’s a big loophole.
Consider the legal fiasco that was the trial of the owners and “quality manager” of that peanut company that caused multiple salmonella deaths about 10-15 years ago. Their QA manager’s legal defense was literally: I’m not qualified to do my job and should never been hired. 21 CFR says that “employees should be qualified to perform their jobs.” What does that mean? Should she have a degree in biology or chemistry? A degree in early childhood learning and k-12 education? On the job training on the day to day of the peanut factory and what to do if you have in infestation of birds? Beyond that, who is in charge of making sure she’s qualified? The regulations are unclear, and in the system that’s been in place for 40 years, all of those questions will be hammered out in the randomness of court and in the worst way possible. Like so.
I’m sorry - I could write a whole freaking book about this.
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/13/baby-formula-shortage-abbott-bacteria-safety-testing-lobbying/
The timeline is stricter regulations were announced in 2014 but weren’t implemented because of lobbying, leading to outbreaks and recalls that the companies responsible argued were not related to their formula, citing reports of frequent testing done in their facilities. Those reports turned out to be falsified.
If the regulations were put in place, then the facilities would have seen more frequent third party and/or government inspections.
US thoroughly punishing infractions
I like how you can tell that the hand slapping and the hand being slapped are from the same person. It draws parallels to just how bought out our politicians are, almost as though the rich are ‘punishing’ themselves.
This one hits a bit different after that Brazil plane crash
What was the cause?
Honestly I’m not completely sure, I’m not trying to say it was because of regulation, just the timeliness of the imagery of a commercial jet spiraling down in a populated area
You’re totally wrong, that wasn’t a jet it was a prop plane. See no regulations needed!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
How about killing thousands of people overnight with no meaningful consequ?
A brief history of regulation…
- Euclidean zoning
- Alcohol prohibition
- Subsidies for fossil fuel companies
- 2008 financial crisis bailouts
A brief history of self-regulation…
- Decriminalization of drug possession and consumption
- Nunavut self-governance
- Cash donation charities; UBI
- EU Schengen agreement
Maybe: poor people self-regulating > governments regulating > corporations self-regulating > rich people self-regulating?
Euclidean zoning
Houstonian here, and developers will do that regardless of the presence or absence of zoning laws. Its just a cheaper way of mass producing suburban real estate.
Alcohol prohibition
Originally came out of a period of wholly unregulated alcohol production, resulting in enormous social harm both through direct consumption (moonshine poisoning people, quack medics distributing alcohol as a panacea, alcoholism ruining lives) and knock-on effects (domestic violence, workplace injuries, automotive fatalities). The post-21st amendment wasn’t a return to laisse-faire alcohol production, but of strict regulatory enforcement of production, distribution, and consumption under a litany of state laws.
Subsidies for fossil fuel companies
Energy is a utility and should have always been in the domain of the public sector, both because it is essential for domestic commerce and vital for national security. The biggest subsidies that fossil fuel companies receive come from the MIC, which is the largest single consumer of fuel and also the means by which the country secures access to oil fields.
And under state leadership, we’ve seen a consistent and reliable pivot to nuclear power as the preferred method of energy production. The US, France, and the UK were all heavily invested in emerging nuclear technologies during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, as they sought to compete with the Eastern Block, India, and China. The fall of the USSR, the pivot to full privatization of the energy sector under Reagan and Clinton, and the ascendancy of US-friendly Middle Eastern dictatorships in the global financial system are what continue to force our reliance on fossil fuels.
Had we continued to treat energy as a utility rather than a profit center, we’d have kept a great deal of fossil fuel in the ground and pivoted to full nuclear electrification 40 years ago.
2008 financial crisis bailouts
Graham Leech Biley created the conditions for financial collapse, not the post-collapse short-term takeover of the banks. The biggest mistake Obama made was de-nationalization. A better president would have extended the bailouts directly to homeowners and permanently nationalized the home mortgage system.
…wat? I can’t hear you over the industrial cherry picking you’re doing over there.
If you prefer to eat the entire cherry tree, that’s your perogative. Personally I prefer using more precise tools so I only take what I need to and do as little damage as possible, though rest assured the cherries are hand-picked. The noise must be on your end.
I’ll be honest, I don’t really see how the Love Canal has much to do with self regulation, as the chemical company involved did go above and beyond the regulations at the time for the containment liner. It only failed when people dug foundations through the middle of it because the local town council forced them to sell the property to the council, and then immediately flagrantly violated the terms of the sale where they agreed to never build on the site by concealing the site’s history and building a school while auctioning off the land to developers for a surrounding neighborhood on the site.
Libertarians: LALLALALA I CANT HEAR YOU
Airlines might be a bad example. Before 1978 there was a lot more control, such as mandating price minimums. Without those you get affordable air travel.
But for airplane companies themselves, I absolutely agree. The FAA had to save money because of their tiny budget, so they had airplane manufacturers inspect their own things instead, with bad results.
That the FAA had to save money by not doing one of their most important job meant American lives got cheaper, didn’t it?
Sure? But Congress doesn’t fund them to be able to do their job.
Why the fuck not? It’s vitally important to the economy, there’s no reason for it to be privatized in the first place.
You talking about airlines or aircraft manufacturers?
Both? They need so much regulation and control that it makes sense to just cut out the middle men.
The manufacturers are so heavily subsidized by the government they might as well be publicly owned anyway.
Too much government control of the airlines was definitely detrimental after WWII. They couldn’t compete on prices, couldn’t adapt to changing routes, and couldn’t really cost optimize anything. Deregulating the non-safety aspects improved air travel a lot.
There wasn’t government control of the airlines, just regulations. Protectionist regulations.
The airlines were still privately owned and the government gave them sweetheart deals and intentionally limited the entry of new competition into the industry, allowing the formation of monopolies of the legacy airlines. There was no incentive for increasing the number of carriers because that would hurt profits, and the regulations helped by making entry into the market even harder.
That problem goes away if you just seize the airlines and run them as public utilities.
I grew up next to the Cuyahoga river in the '70s. I have no idea why that river wasn’t on fire every day.
I think the Cuyahoga River can fit for both heavy industry and chemical companies. Not even necessarily for the same fire either lmao
