http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/politics/regulation/6268-good-government-regulations.html"Good" Government Regulations?
15 February 2011 Michael Hurd
We need objective laws to protect rights and not regulations to tell us how to live.
Obama says that the government can eliminate "burdensome" rules, but America's businesses must recognize the "good" that regulations do.
What is the standard of "good" here? Good to whom, and why? If regulations are good for businesses and customers, then why must government mandate them? Businesses, on the premise of self-interest, regulate themselves. They do so for their own sake and the sake of their customers, whom they must keep happy. And if regulations are only good from a government or political point-of-view, then by what right does government impose them?
Also, Obama promises to eliminate "burdensome" rules. Which ones are burdensome, and why? Which regulations will be eliminated, and when?
We're not holding our breaths. Federal regulations have grown massively during the previous Bush and Clinton Administrations. I shudder to think how big they'll be by the end of Obama's term(s). By not objectively distinguishing proper from improper rules, Obama reserves the power for himself, and his bureaucracies, to decide that for all of us. He did this with his health care bill, for which he's providing exemptions for hundreds of companies. Which companies qualify for these exemptions and which ones do not? That's Obama's call. This is not capitalism, and it's not even democracy. It's tyranny.
Obama says: "The perils of too much regulation are matched by the dangers of too little." How much is too much -- and why? Again, no objective standard will ever be defined.
Obama doesn't think people can regulate themselves. He implies most people are too stupid to handle a free market. Given the fact that most people voted somebody like him into the Presidency, and might even do so again, it's tempting to agree with him. Most people, at least politically, don't seem to be all that bright or reflective. At the same time, only a free and unregulated -- yes, you read that right: unregulated -- society can produce the business and scientific geniuses required to get things done and keep things expanding and progressing.
Where do you think it comes from?
The brilliant innovators of history have themselves to thank, not capitalism or any other economic system, for getting the job done. It's just that capitalism is the system that leaves them free to do so.
Ken-G. Johansen.