Regulations are often burdensome
Criticism of government regulation is a major theme of the Right. I used to think that was simply a cover for predatory business practices, pushed by wealthy executives. In part, of course, that is true. But at least two things have complicated the picture for me.
First, many of my unimpeachably liberal friends, engaged in social entrepreneurship or civil society projects, have complained about the crushing weight of regulations on their attempts at social betterment. One who builds zero energy buildings from a deep commitment to climate improvement is bogged down by contradictory and excessive city rules that often serve as an entryway to corruption. Another, in another city, finds efforts at housing for the poor caught in a maze of red tape. Doctors find that Medicare and Medicaid rules create enormous adverse incentives: for instance, they end up - through complex interactions among rules that no one intended - making it dramatically less lucrative to care for children than adults. I myself, as a Board members of the Freelancers Union, saw how Obamacare's rules, work the best of intentions, created many obstacles to innovation and plain hassle stay felt intrusive and unnecessary. We spent a great deal of time complaining about them.
Then, as a faculty member and University Senate representative at Rutgers, I have seen how the creep of undressing regulation had created a need for more and more layers of compliance offices, watchers watching the watchers, and petty procedures that eat up our time and raise our blood pressure. A few faculty members were once found to have padded their travel reports, generally in very minor ways, so the state demanded more control. Now all of us have had to increase our level of documentation manyfold, and an army of administrators has been hired to check on our forms, and another army to make sure nothing has slipped by the first line. And in order to justify their existence, they ask have to find reasons to reject a certain number of submissions, and we all scramble to catch up. Meanwhile there are gaping holes that they are unable to plug - we could certainly dodge the system if we put our minds to it. And when we're being treated with such mistrust, and losing money when invoices are rejected for stupid reasons, the temptation to dodge grows - everyone becomes more cynical.
This is the way regulation works, more or less inevitably: it starts with good intentions, to prevent abuses; but it can never cover all possibilities, it always creates unintended consequences and perverse incentives, it spread as it tries to plug the holes, and it undermines trust and collegiality.
Regulation works well only when it is a codification of what most people already believe is right. If most people are basically committed to honesty in their invoices, regulation works well to clarify and standardize exactly what that means, and to catch the rare deviants. But if the culture has degenerated to the point that no one expects honesty, regulation cannot rectify it. Indeed, they accelerate the decline, because no one feels is their responsibility any more. The same is true of regulation of businesses: when a business community feels that restrictions on pollution or rules about transactions are basically just, they see regulation as a positive because it sets a level playing field. But when they don't, there's no way government inspections can keep up with the ingenuity of violators.
When we of the Left see a need for regulation, we need to do the work of convincing the large majority of their rightness. Just passing a rule won't do it.
First, many of my unimpeachably liberal friends, engaged in social entrepreneurship or civil society projects, have complained about the crushing weight of regulations on their attempts at social betterment. One who builds zero energy buildings from a deep commitment to climate improvement is bogged down by contradictory and excessive city rules that often serve as an entryway to corruption. Another, in another city, finds efforts at housing for the poor caught in a maze of red tape. Doctors find that Medicare and Medicaid rules create enormous adverse incentives: for instance, they end up - through complex interactions among rules that no one intended - making it dramatically less lucrative to care for children than adults. I myself, as a Board members of the Freelancers Union, saw how Obamacare's rules, work the best of intentions, created many obstacles to innovation and plain hassle stay felt intrusive and unnecessary. We spent a great deal of time complaining about them.
Then, as a faculty member and University Senate representative at Rutgers, I have seen how the creep of undressing regulation had created a need for more and more layers of compliance offices, watchers watching the watchers, and petty procedures that eat up our time and raise our blood pressure. A few faculty members were once found to have padded their travel reports, generally in very minor ways, so the state demanded more control. Now all of us have had to increase our level of documentation manyfold, and an army of administrators has been hired to check on our forms, and another army to make sure nothing has slipped by the first line. And in order to justify their existence, they ask have to find reasons to reject a certain number of submissions, and we all scramble to catch up. Meanwhile there are gaping holes that they are unable to plug - we could certainly dodge the system if we put our minds to it. And when we're being treated with such mistrust, and losing money when invoices are rejected for stupid reasons, the temptation to dodge grows - everyone becomes more cynical.
This is the way regulation works, more or less inevitably: it starts with good intentions, to prevent abuses; but it can never cover all possibilities, it always creates unintended consequences and perverse incentives, it spread as it tries to plug the holes, and it undermines trust and collegiality.
Regulation works well only when it is a codification of what most people already believe is right. If most people are basically committed to honesty in their invoices, regulation works well to clarify and standardize exactly what that means, and to catch the rare deviants. But if the culture has degenerated to the point that no one expects honesty, regulation cannot rectify it. Indeed, they accelerate the decline, because no one feels is their responsibility any more. The same is true of regulation of businesses: when a business community feels that restrictions on pollution or rules about transactions are basically just, they see regulation as a positive because it sets a level playing field. But when they don't, there's no way government inspections can keep up with the ingenuity of violators.
When we of the Left see a need for regulation, we need to do the work of convincing the large majority of their rightness. Just passing a rule won't do it.
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