1. I haven't proposed any solution. I'm defending the existence of regulators. And I never said regulation was perfect. Just that we need some.
2. Asking "Who will regulate the regulators" is unproductive. Obviously, human nature wont change, and corruption will always exist. But just because regulation isn't perfect doesn't mean we should throw it out.
Also, you should already know the answer to your own question. By promoting transparency, citizen participation, and establishing checks and balances, we can mitigate the effects of corruption (but not entirely). This has been known for, I dunno, a few hundred years. Are we really debating this now?
More regulation doesn't help. More of a bad thing is still bad. Better regulation helps. We need to question why the regulators didn't see this coming.
Regulations are generally the after-the-fact reaction to irresponsible, negligent, or ignorant behavior.
The problem is, the folks who think that more regulation is the answer seem to think that the government regulators are benevolent gods who themselves never make mistakes, are not subject to greed, corruption, political influence, negligence, incompetence, etc.
One of the problems with the regulation debate framed in terms of "more vs. less" is that it's easy to assume increased regulation will fix what you consider bad and preserve what you consider good, or that deregulation will only cut pointless bureaucracy.
It's distressing that the support is for more regulation in general (which can be easily coopted to support stuff like this), rather than specific policies or outcomes.
How do you propose to solve regulatory capture with more regulations? Or more regulators? Given the obvious failure of regulation, why is the only answer that anyone can conceive of "more regulations"? Like trying to quench a fire by adding more fuel, oxygen, and heat.
And in light of the inability of regulators to enforce the regulations and the plain failure of them to do so, who cares what the regulations actually said anyhow?
The problem as it's explained is that those being regulated are the ONLY ones presenting informed commentary on the issue.
Surely hearing a perspective from someone striving (at the very least) to be objective rather than ONLY hearing from someone who has clear bias on the issue (the corporation to be regulated) is more likely to be a good thing than a bad thing.
They are regulated. The regulators are complicit. Regulation is not a magic bullet. Moreover, regulation is not homogenous. More regulation is not always better/worse, and less isn't always better/worse.
My point is that "regulation" isn't a monotonous scale from "more/better" to "less/worse". The quote and link does not at all answer my questions; what regulations did he work for as a lobbyist, and why?
Industry incumbents frequently use lobbyists to create regulation to raise the bar to entry in their field, cementing their own position and stifling competition - creating the kinds of complacent mono/doupolies that we know so well from cable companies and ISPs.
Whenever I see "see, regulation is bad" it's always seems to be framing the answer as getting rid of all regulations rather than making them less onerous and more effective.
Indeed. Regulation isn't a magical well-intentioned, well-executed, well-self-policed endeavour. It's incredibly varied, and has few genuine incentives to improve on any of those axes.
You added the paragraph about regulation after I had written my comment to your initial post, so I was really only talking about what I initially quoted. The question about regulation is complex and something I personally have yet to make up my mind about.
It seems that regulators would be kind of gods where there is nothing else to say about it.
I am still waiting for a real, logical reply to who regulates regulators.
After all, we live in an overregulated world where people always complain about corporations.
However, much of this power is accumulated through lobbying to legislators. Do you people really think that regulating MORE is better?
I bet this is not the good way to go...
Again, just my two cents from my intellectually honest (I can be wrong, of course) analysis by seeing what I see day by day.
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