Galileo Blogs has left a new comment on your post "Protecting Us from Ourselves":

Thank you for a great article on regulation. I especially liked how you connected all forms of regulation stretching across many areas of life, from investing, to medical practices, etc.

Americans now largely approve of regulation as a general principle. They expect government to regulate in order to "protect" them from risks. An appalling example of it is in New York. New Yorkers have blithely embraced a ban on smoking on private property, such as bars and restaurants, and a ban on the use of trans fats at restaurants.

These outrageous and precedent-setting bans have been rather common in New York's history. For example, the first zoning law to "protect" us from tall buildings was passed here in the early 1900s. I suspect that many other regulations such as building codes, occupational licensing, and multifarious business regulations now common in America began here in New York.

Why is that so? I suspect the answer has something to do with the education of New Yorkers. Many people come here who went to progressive schools where they were indoctrinated with the modern view of the virtue of government regulation of the economy. That is also true of Boston and San Francisco, two other loci of progressive government activity.

My other theory is that because New York is prosperous, the connection between wealth and capitalism has become less obvious to many people. New Yorkers simply see that "the goods are here." Therefore, they do not consider that the goods are here because they were produced using the freedom that still remains in our economy. In New York, the goods have stayed here, despite destructive government policies. Those policies have not yet reached a tipping point where they are obviously destroying the wealth of the city (as they did in the 1970s). Therefore, New Yorkers think that onerous regulation and high taxes can coexist with prosperity. "Somehow" the goods will be here, regardless of what government does to stand in the way of production.

So, oddly enough, New York's very wealth, itself the result of the elements of capitalism that do exist, is a reason why the city's leaders can smugly support the regulations and taxation that will eventually destroy that wealth.

Why do you think the pro-regulation mentality has taken root in America and particularly so in places such as New York, Boston and San Francisco?



Posted by Galileo Blogs to Thrutch at 7:37 PM