The idea of regulation is characteristic hubris of government. These elites think people are too stupid to see evil corporate reality. “Luckily” these omni-prescient supermen create mandatory rules to guard our feeble minds from the complexities of life. They assume you need to have systemic knowledge to operate safely as an individual, and try to regulate the system at large. In actuality it is local actors using local knowledge and the information encapsulated in the price system connected to the greater system that form the basis of our dynamic society.
Regulators overestimate the importance of systemic knowledge and guarding the “greater system”, and underestimate the resilience and flexibility of local knowledge and actors.
Regulation should be left to the interplay of those who have most to lose and gain: the owners of the companies and the consumers. These two parties are perfectly capable of self-regulating, and, when needed, self-imposed regulations or “seals of quality” will serve the function that regulators impose with brute force much more efficiently — without trampling our freedoms and creating huge costs that are often detrimental to those whom they are meant to protect.
When companies mess up, they will go bankrupt and new structures that serve interest of society better will emerge through the power of individual enterprise. The price mechanism does not falter.
On job-creation: job creation in itself is not difficult. Prehistoric man was employed full-time. Soviet economies have full employment. Socialists are also very good at creating government jobs. Job creation that actually increases wealth is harder.
What makes free enterprise economies so nice to live in is that individuals are free to upgrade the patterns of production and exchange based on a profitable underlying reality — not the whims of government, dictators, or ideology. It is the creation of more wealth through a discovery process that is the main role of entrepreneurs.
Small companies are the greatest “creative destructors”, and regulation will hurt them and benefit big, statist companies, delaying the increase of wealth that a free market makes possible.
[...] to be this way? Well, having governments that encourage consumption and punish production through a punitive tax code and cheap debt doesn’t help. But ultimately, it’s an individual decision to take on [...]
August 17, 2007 at 1:13 am
The idea of regulation is characteristic hubris of government. These elites think people are too stupid to see evil corporate reality. “Luckily” these omni-prescient supermen create mandatory rules to guard our feeble minds from the complexities of life. They assume you need to have systemic knowledge to operate safely as an individual, and try to regulate the system at large. In actuality it is local actors using local knowledge and the information encapsulated in the price system connected to the greater system that form the basis of our dynamic society.
Regulators overestimate the importance of systemic knowledge and guarding the “greater system”, and underestimate the resilience and flexibility of local knowledge and actors.
Regulation should be left to the interplay of those who have most to lose and gain: the owners of the companies and the consumers. These two parties are perfectly capable of self-regulating, and, when needed, self-imposed regulations or “seals of quality” will serve the function that regulators impose with brute force much more efficiently — without trampling our freedoms and creating huge costs that are often detrimental to those whom they are meant to protect.
When companies mess up, they will go bankrupt and new structures that serve interest of society better will emerge through the power of individual enterprise. The price mechanism does not falter.
On job-creation: job creation in itself is not difficult. Prehistoric man was employed full-time. Soviet economies have full employment. Socialists are also very good at creating government jobs. Job creation that actually increases wealth is harder.
What makes free enterprise economies so nice to live in is that individuals are free to upgrade the patterns of production and exchange based on a profitable underlying reality — not the whims of government, dictators, or ideology. It is the creation of more wealth through a discovery process that is the main role of entrepreneurs.
Small companies are the greatest “creative destructors”, and regulation will hurt them and benefit big, statist companies, delaying the increase of wealth that a free market makes possible.
November 4, 2007 at 7:22 am
[...] to be this way? Well, having governments that encourage consumption and punish production through a punitive tax code and cheap debt doesn’t help. But ultimately, it’s an individual decision to take on [...]