[purple_turtle]

Existence of specific bad US regulation and overregulation caused this.

Bad EU regulations and overregulation caused other problems. For example it is illegal for me to throw old socks full of holes into trash, I am supposed to take it to recycling centre on other side of the city.

[tumdum_]

Oh yeah, because in the absence of regulation, the insulin producer would sell it at negligible margins, sure!

As for the socks - my city has like ~5 locations where old textiles can be recycled, the closest one in slightly less than 1km from where I live. I see no problem with going there twice a year :)

[Gabrys1]

With lack of regulations, the theory is, there will be many competing manufacturers of insulin, dropping the cost down. Probably not as simple as that, but that's the idea at least

[marcosdumay]

> there will be many competing manufacturers of insulin

So... You are assuming market regulations still exist? Because without those, no, bio-chemical industry is absolutely one that consolidates quickly.

[cons0le]

Absolutely. With no regulations I could produce/sell it for super cheap. Because I would be cutting it with tap water, and using forced labor

[sophrosyne42]

Preventing forced labor is a feature of normal contract law and property rights, and has little to do with regulations.

[LinXitoW]

Now, that's all just regulations. What are regulations but laws that restrict/govern the way to do commerce? Anti-slavery is part of that, just like every other concession we've had to pry from the hands of capitalists over the last 100 years, like no child labor, no locking workers into factories, PPE, etc...

[sophrosyne42]

You're free to call contract law and private property law "regulations", but recognize that these branches of law have very different properties, history, and functions than what we traditionally refer to by regulations. Traditionally, when people talk about regulations they are talking about legislation, i.e., rules and decrees created by a legislative body, voted into law by some parliamentary body or created by an executive agency to support decrees of a parliamentary or similar body with the power to declare law. You can think of this as legislation or declaratory law.

Contrast this with contract and property law. These laws were created primarily out of common law, a long evolutionary process arising out of series of decisions from a judiciary attempting to reconcile conflicts between the parties. This is judicial or conciliatory law.

Crucially, most if not all the advances and the rise of extreme productivity from capitalism that supports populations in excess of 8 billion as opposed to about 0.5 billion, have come from emphasis and pre-eminence on the latter kind of law and the smashing of the former kind of law, i.e., the destruction of the guild system of privileges, removing or minimizing protectionist laws, etc. And the former kind of law has either been nominal, merely codifying the advances caused by the latter law like in the case of child labor, or it has been reactionary and hampered the progress of the latter sort of law.

[sophrosyne42]

Yes, insulin producers would! It is illegal to compete, and insulin producers enjoy a legally backed monopoly. Yes, removing the regulations which support that monopoly will reduce prices. Any other option merely exists to support and uphold the special privileges that the current regulatory regjme grants to insulin producers.

[purple_turtle]

I am not going to collect old clothes (used as rags and ready to be thrown out) for months. For start, my flat is not large enough for that.

I just throw them away with rubbish and get less supportive of people and institutions that created this law.

[puszczyk]

Please just stop being antisocial.

[throw4847285]

If that were the case, there would be no HackerNews.

[sophrosyne42]

Why don't the regulators stop being antisocial?

[notTooFarGone]

Can you please link the law that states that?

I see too much bad faith shit thrown around.

[ruszki]

I don’t know where they live, but I’m 100% that it’s not an EU regulation, because I could throw socks into landfill/generic bins legally in the EU countries where I lived. Even the new EPR schemes about this is not about what’s mandatory by users, but what’s mandatory by textile manufacturers.