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by ZachPruckowski 4316 days ago
>Why do regulations have to be in line with market economics in the first place?

Yeah, I think this is something a lot of folks overlook - regulations exist because society has decided its interests are better served by making folks play by a certain set of rules than by hitting peak market efficiency or whatever. Now you can argue that a given regulation is not the best way to achieve a societal goal (for instance that limits on cab numbers don't reduce congestion much) or that they have worse externalities (medallion systems squeezing out the little guy in favor of big companies that can afford 6-figure medallion prices) or that the lost efficiency isn't worth society's goals, but straight up saying that they're "inefficient" isn't a case for anything.
2 comments
dlss 4316 days ago
> regulations exist because society has decided its interests are better served by making folks play by a certain set of rules than by hitting peak market efficiency or whatever

This is technically correct, but is forgetting that society is often wrong about what serves its interests.

For some popularly unpopular examples: homosexual marriage being illegal, a drug war instead of drug treatment programs, putting fluoride (a neurotoxin) in the water.

Edit: those are current laws, for more popularly unpopular laws see slavery, the 18th amendment, the banning of blood transfusions, etc, etc

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discardorama 4316 days ago
> regulations exist because society has decided its interests are better served by making folks play by a certain set of rules than by hitting peak market efficiency or whatever

But society (and times) change. If there was a regulation that said 'the rightmost lane must always be reserved for horse-drawn carriages', we'd all be laughing about it.

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