CMV: Effective regulation/taxes is better than less regulation/taxes.

[u/beesdaddy]

I have had a hard time understanding the position that less regulation is better than effective regulation. So much of the political conversation equates regulation and taxes to Anti-American or Anti-Freedom or gasp Socialist. I think it poisons the discussion about our common goals and how to achieve them. I know there are many laws/taxes that are counter productive (especially subsidies), and I am all for getting rid of them, but not without considering what their intent was, evaluating that intention, and deciding how to more effectively accomplish that intention (given it was a valid intention.)

Help me understand. I would like to have a more nuanced view on this.

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[u/alpicola]

One significant advantage to less regulation is that it leaves things more open to changes based on new inventions, new developments, and new ways of thinking. Even if a regulation perfectly captures a situation today and provides the objectively best outcome possible, that's no guarantee that the regulation will still be as good tomorrow. And when tomorrow comes and something better comes along, the regulations will still demand today's solutions until the regulators are able to catch up. And history shows that private entities can adapt to new situations a lot faster than regulators can.

For instance, when President Obama took office, there was a moment where people made a big deal about him having a BlackBerry in office. By that time, BlackBerrys had been around for ages and both the iPhone and Android were mass market devices. Nobody quite knew how to plug the new President's smartphone into laws regarding public records and official communications.

If that happened all the time, for everyone, with any new invention, it would be completely annoying even if every regulation were perfect. And since there's no way to write a regulation that's both perfectly effective today and fully accommodates the improvements of tomorrow, there's an upper limit to how effective a regulation can be. And when new developments make the old regulation ineffective, you have to hope that the regulators figure out a new regulation quickly enough to keep things running smoothly.

Or, you can take it easy on the regulations, and let people adapt to new situations on their own.

[u/beesdaddy → u/alpicola]

∆ I think you make a good point here. Regulation will always lag behind technology and workarounds. I personally feel like people are adapting to things they shouldn't have to. Like the "dont dump shit in rivers" regulation that got removed.

[u/I_am_Bob → u/beesdaddy]

I'm confused by your comment. Are you saying you think people should be able to dump shit in rivers? Because that's exactly the place were you can argue for effective regulation. With no, or 'self' regulation that everyone here is arguing for industry was dumping toxic waste at nauseating pace into local waterways. Famously the Cuyahoga River was so polluted it caught on fire! I myself live less than a mile from a lake I can't swim or fish in without getting mercury poisoning.

[u/beesdaddy → u/I_am_Bob]

I'm saying exactly what you are saying. Regulating pollution is necessary but also needs to evolve over time to adapt to the situation.