by Gerry Manata
The Republican mantra that we have listened to for decades is that if we reduce government regulations and, of course, lower taxes, mainly on the rich, everything will be better. It will cure everything.
Prior to the 17th century and perhaps the 18th century as well, people in America lived in small villages or towns. Many hunted, fished, and grew their own crops. They worked with a small number of natural elements and compounds. They worked with simple tools, largely expansions of the six simple tools. Products created with them were simple. Many people made their own huts, homes, or teepees and everything in them, as well as the clothes on their back. By the time you grew up, you were familiar with all of the above, how everything was made, how it worked. What you didn’t create you could buy from the local artisan. He or she was someone you knew and trusted. You knew what was in the product, how it worked, and how it was put together. You knew what was safe and not safe about objects in your life. You knew what you could do or not do with things. Destruction of our life supporting ecosystems was minimal. Life was simple. There was little need for government regulation.
Fast forward to today. It is estimated there are now over 50 million chemical compounds in our world. Dozens are either found or synthesized every day. Few consumers know what they are or can do, what will happen if they are in the air that you breathe, in your food or drink, or if they touch your skin, are burned, or interact with other objects around you. The same is true with the increased electromagnetic and even nuclear radiation that is around us. There are new life forms produced--GMOs, for example. No one knows the number for sure, but there are undoubtedly tens of thousands of complex tools and machines in our world today. Again, few consumers know what they are made of, how they are put together, how they work, and how dangerous they might be. Many are put together by literally hundreds of thousands of people, often exploited workers, scattered around the world. A buyer will not know any of these people, except perhaps be acquainted with the last retailer. Some of these machines are put together by huge and powerful corporations owned and operated by thousands of other people, also none of which a consumer would know. You may know how to operate the computer you are using now, for example, but only a very small percentage of the population knows exactly how it works or what it is made of, who put it together and how, or if it can be dangerous to use, dispose of, or even be around. A citizen/consumer on his or her own would be very lost and vulnerable.
Enter the government. Over the past 200 years, as our economic complexity has grown, consumers and workers have organized and increasingly and desperately attempted to use government for protection through licensing, permits, laws, rules and regulations against the negative effects of this industrial juggernaut. Today we have mountains of laws and regulations, but our economy could not operate without them. In our rapidly changing society, more are being added or changed continuously. Every regulation added is put there because of some pressure by workers or citizen groups on the government to protect their environment, to offer them protection as consumers, or to grant them as workers some semblance of economic rights and equality. Some are added as the result of lawsuits. We have become the most litigious society on earth, with a lawyer for every 265 Americans. Many regulations are added to avoid lawsuits. Attempts at added regulation are usually resisted by the targeted industry to avoid their added expense and/or loss of power. Sometimes businesses succeed at this. Sometimes they don’t. This battle is continuous. But even business people are consumers too. When they enter the market place, they expect the products that they buy to be safe and reliable also.
All of this has a dark side, of course. Some regulations end up being too specific, others too general. Some become obsolete, many are duplicated by multiple agencies, and some contradict each other. Some are much too lengthy and not understandable, others too simple to be useful. Others are too impracticable to implement; others simply miss the mark or make no sense at all. And then there is the corruption. Bureaucracies are powerful, and power corrupts. There can be bribes and kickbacks. Regulatory agencies can give unfair advantage to one group over another. Some government agencies, however, are not powerful enough to do any good, or exist simply to employ people and basically distribute money in one way or another from taxpayers to various interest groups. As a legislator, I would be happy to combat the above wrongs. If a business wants to cut regulations, however, just to increase profits, but in doing so exploits its workers, misleads consumers or harms our health/environment, forget it.
The unique 200-year bubble that humanity is in now started all of this growth of regulation. This period is one of population growth/growth economies fostered by the burning of cheap fossil fuel. It is soon coming to an end. The changes will be dramatic. The regulators will have their hands full keeping up.
