This gets to the core of what modern governments are even trying to do. At least in the US, the concept of Executive branch agencies creating and enforcing regulations, and therefore manipulating markets, is fairly new.
I would personally want to see all of those agencies disbanded and regulations removed in favor of trusting markets and consumers to deal with problems. If nothing else, government intervention should be an extremely rare occurrence rather than business as usual.
With that said, there are certainly benefits of those agencies that would be lost. Its just my opinion that the good doesn't outweigh the bad, and that a system with fundamental issues and misaligned incentives should be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The short term damage caused would always be less than the long term damage of continuing to hold them together with duct tape and bubble gum.
Yes we should totally get rid of any oversight of large companies, because they will totally continue to put the safety of their customers ahead of making profit number bigger.
They totally won't screw you over and/or kill people due to poor design choices if it means they can save a buck.
Are you arguing that they don't do that with federal oversight?
Without government oversight providing plausible deniability and the appearance of safety, companies wouldn't get this large. When consumers don't believe the government is ensuring that only safe products and services are available they will step up to make their own decisions.
Case in point, if Boeing flights started to show a pattern of safety issues and customers didn't believe that planes must be safe because they are regulated, consumers may decide to fly less or not at all. Companies would have to respond when money dries up and plane sit empty. Companies would also focus on safety if they know their business could disappear either through customers losing faith in them or due to the heavy cost of litigation when their safety lapses create a pattern of harm.
Regulation on this scale serves a few purposes. Most importantly, I'd argue, to give financial and legal cover to the largest corporations, and to create the appearance of control and safety beyond what any realistic guarantee could ever possibly be.
No I was not doing that. I was mostly being sarcastic.
I will however argue that with no oversight at all, things would be much worse.
I do think your arguments give people too much credit though. If the choice was a cheaper flight but on a plane with a dubious safety record vs a more expensive flight on a plane with a good safety record I'd wager most would take option 1
I didn't catch your sarcasm there, sorry about that.
> I'd wager most would take option 1
If those people where aware of the safety concerns and made the choice knowingly, what's the problem? We don't need to regulate people from informed consent, do we?
> I didn't catch your sarcasm there, sorry about that.
No worries. It is text after all.
>If those people where aware of the safety concerns and made the choice knowingly, what's the problem? We don't need to regulate people from informed consent, do we?
I would say no, but in the same vane argue that such things shouldn't be a choice you have to make, that all planes should be some base level of safe. And since no company (at least in the US) is going to do that willingly because that hurts profits someone with teeth needs to exist to make them.
the fundamental problem is information asymmetry. when a consumer makes a purchase, they do not and can not evaluate the safety of a product design. As such, the nash equilibrium is for manufacturers to cut all the corners they can.
When Boeing flights have repeated safety issues on passenger flights, what more information is needed?
As it stands, consumers don't have much reason to act for themselves as the FAA and government at large would prefer that we trust they have it under control.
That may even be true, but surely that falls under the information imbalance you mention. We don't know exactly how the regulators are responding, though we do know that FAA regulations rely heavily on self-report mechanisms in which the companies effecrively regulate themselves.
That only holds up if consumers are either withheld almost all information, or simply don't care.
To be clear, administration doesn't create law - only legislation does. Regulation only makes sense if its enforcing the will of the people. If the people have access to the basics, like what Koch industries actually does or a record of the most recent safety issues with Boeing planes, they can act themselves. Why do we need a heavy and every-growing web of regulators and centralized authority to enforce this?
If a company is screwing with the environment in ways that I am not okay with, why wouldn't I just stop giving them my money rather than waiting for regulators to eventually catch up and hope that both regulators aren't bought by special interests and that they leave no loop holes?
> this kind of “unfettered” capitalism.
What does this mean exactly? What is fettered capitalism in your definition, and when does it stop being capitalism at all? As far as I see it, capitalism like free speech is an all or nothing affair. I'm totally okay with people choosing to not want the risks of free speech or capitalism, but it isn't a spectrum as the value if both is lost as soon as you start putting guard rails on it.
I would personally want to see all of those agencies disbanded and regulations removed in favor of trusting markets and consumers to deal with problems. If nothing else, government intervention should be an extremely rare occurrence rather than business as usual.
With that said, there are certainly benefits of those agencies that would be lost. Its just my opinion that the good doesn't outweigh the bad, and that a system with fundamental issues and misaligned incentives should be gotten rid of as soon as possible. The short term damage caused would always be less than the long term damage of continuing to hold them together with duct tape and bubble gum.