[quote=afx114]If we had listened to all of these anti-regulation arguments in the late 70s, would we all still be driving cars getting 16MPG? Or would the market have taken care of that?[/quote]
This is a great example of “regulating to a result” instead of “regulating the transaction” These are my latest catch-phrases I use in my attempts to teach people that “appropriate regulation” is better than “no regulation” and that “appropriate regulation” involves regulating fraud, theft, breach of contract, and violent crimes, but NOT trying to manipulate a market away from a result that you think shouldn’t happen.
Forcing people to act how you want them isn’t nice, regardless of your intentions.
In other words – who cares if the market would have “taken care of that” because by “taken care of that” you mean “resulted in a market situation that I like.”
Who has the friggin right to tell me what car I can drive and how much gas I can put in it? Furthermore – how much money would we spend enforcing a regulation like this?
Maybe we would have been driving 5 mph cars and we would have burned through all the oil by now and would have, as a result, created solar alternatives and be living in Nirvana. Maybe 60 mph cars would be so expensive, nobody could afford them and our economic productivity would plummet and we would be plunged into the dark ages. A market is a good way for multiple people to bring about a situation, or come to a conclusion together through individual action, and that situation may not always be what you like.
To force people into a certain way of action because you think that is the way it should be is basically a totalitarian approach that never works, and invariably results in unexpected side-affects that screw up your original intentions or create worse problems. This idea is “Control Freaks Gone Wild.” Who is to say you are the guy to decide ? Why 60 mph ? Why not 1000? Why not 10?
Maybe we should restrict all art projects to 1 gallon of paint. That is about as smart.
The original poster’s user name should be “BigGovernmentIsGoodButOnlyIfTheBig
GovernmentForcesPeopleToDoWhatIWantThemTo” and I would like to suggest China as a new home for you.
Just let people buy the car they want and deal with what happens. The market may not go the way you want it to. Tough crap. This ain’t Burger King – you can’t always have it your way.
