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by nybble41 1625 days ago
> I still want regulations (or just "laws") that stop pollution, deceptive marketing, and so on.

Not allowing pollution isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights.

Not allowing deceptive marketing (fraudulent contracts) isn't regulation, it's enforcing property rights.

If you can't see the difference between regulations and property rights then yeah, opposition to regulations will seem a bit bizarre.

1 comments

Deciding that these are property rights issues and enforcing them as such is itself a form of regulation. Property rights themselves are a basic form of regulation. Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation. Everything that regulate things in a way that protects and enforces people's rights, ensures people aren't being exploited, robbed, misled, etc, is a form of regulation.
> Property rights themselves are a basic form of regulation.

In a general sense, perhaps, but not in the sense that people mean when they say that they're opposed to regulation. Context matters. In this conversation, "regulation" means a deviation from natural property rights, whether that involves directly infringing them, e.g. by attaching extra rules or penalties beyond simply respecting the equal rights of others, or granting artificial "property rights" which will necessarily infringe on others' natural ones.

> Expanding property rights to more areas is regulation.

"Expanding" the concept of property rights to areas where they don't naturally apply (like copyrights and patents) is definitely regulation, in the negative sense. But at that point you're not really talking about property rights any more.