My buddy Evan and I were having a
back-and-forth discussion about the role of government regulation. If he weren't
driving all over the country as we speak, I'd imagine he'd have more time to actually get into a deeper discussion about it.
Before I became a liberal Democrat sometime in the last few years, I was a pretty staunch libertarian (in my worldview, not necessarily party affiliation) who read and quoted the likes of Gary Becker, Glenn Reynolds, Eugene Volokh, Stephen Green, Megan McArdle, and Tyler Cowen in discussions and debates. These guys were the first to convince me that in many cases, market forces are more efficient and desireable than government regulation in achieving certain social goals. I'm embarassed to admit that I haven't actually read much of
Milton Friedman or
Friedrich Hayek's works, but I still intend to do so soon - it's not quite the same to read bits and pieces quoted on some libertarian's blogs.
When it comes to government regulation, I believe in the principle of first doing no harm. Corn subsidies have led to cheap high fructose corn syrup flooding the market in recent decades and ruining public health. Also,
corn-fed beef is unhealthy when compared to grass-fed beef, but the grass-fed stuff can't compete on the market because of corn subsidies. I mean, imagine trying to justify to a 19th century rancher the absurd idea of feeding ruminants corn instead of allowing them to graze. Subsidizing highways has led to less day-to-day exercise in the American lifestyle (Americans often lose weight when visiting Europe or even Manhattan), leaving no wonder why Americans are getting so damn fat. Imagine the uproar if the government subsidized the cost of manufacturing cigarettes. The nation's farm and highway policy is just as damaging to the national health. So I'd just like to slowly roll back these policies as we consider other ways to improve public health. Banning fast-food in South L.A. is not really the answer, especially when fast-food is so
poorly defined in the first place and old fast-food restaurants are grandfathered in. Of course, that brings us to a greater problem in public health - that the poor have fewer resources to opt out of the destructive system of industrial food and lack of exercise - just think of how much it costs to buy wild salmon over farmed, organic pasture-raised beef over ordinary McDonald's quality beef.
Government has an obligation to at least regulate behaviors with negative
externalities (and while they're at it, subsidizing behavior with positive externalities). Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs impose costs on people who choose not to use them, and the government should discourage (through taxes or whatever) such behaviors, especially in contexts with greater externalities (e.g. smoking indoors vs smoking outdoors or at home). Some libertarians hate seat belt laws, but as long as the government pays for paramedics and road maintenance I think it's perfectly within their rights to reduce the likelihood of death on public roads.
Also, government has an interest in encouraging or requiring transparency. A man buying a car should have the right to know whatever he'd like to know about the car - from the materials, manufacture location, number of previous owners, number of miles (whether the odometer is accurate), etc. In Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, he writes of a farm that he presents as the prototype for sustainable farming, and raves about its operations and its owner. The only problem is that the USDA is always hassling the farmer about his slaughter operations because they don't technically obey the letter of the law - but by all accounts he exceeds the cleanliness of any factory slaughterhouse, and does a better job of treating the animals humanely. I bring up Polyface farms because it's an example of transparency being a more powerful regulating agent than the government - he allows his customers to watch the slaughter or investigate any stage of his farming so that they can decide for themselves. Anyone who's seen a
shit lagoon would probably appreciate that openness as being pretty impressive.
Finally, anytime there's a
tragedy of the commons situation, or a
collective action problem, the government should regulate for the greater good, simply because these are precisely the areas where the market tends not to achieve optimum conditions.
Basically all I want the government to do is stop regulating stupid details and start requiring greater transparency - that alone would improve society at very little cost to the government itself (by simplifying the rules the enforcement guys would have an easier time than they do now). The most important thing is that the regulators not lose sight of the goals of regulation. Rulemakers often fail to consider all the possibilities, and by taking away the power of discretion from the rule-enforcers, we get comically absurd scenarios like a
35-year-old getting her license suspended for underage drinking. Or just take a look at the TSA guys at the airport trying to enforce rules that don't make sense.
My friend Evan recommends Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, but I haven't heard good things about it in my circles. Besides, the religious right is who's keeping gambling, gay marriage, and prostitution illegal, and are largely responsible for the complexity of our alcohol laws. I've been to dry counties, and they are rarely blue on the electoral map. And then don't get me started on which party is more likely to take away civil liberties in the name of being tough on crime or terrorism. Either way, it's not really a liberal/conservative or Democrat/Republican issue, but rather one of authoritarianism versus libertarianism. Other than the handful of scenarios listed above, I'm all for government non-interference, except to break down information asymmetries.
EDIT (8/15): Here is
more on the absolutely ridiculous "only licensed interior designers may choose paint or move furniture" laws.
See also the guy who gets shouted down and ridiculed for advancing the preposterous notion that this isn't worth starting WW3 for.