Deregulation is the term to describe the removal or simplification of government rules and regulation that constrain the operation of market forces. If we all as free people use our liberty and pursue our happiness to trade or buy and sell from each other it is called a market. The forces of supply and demand, representing the aggregate influence of self-interested buyers and sellers on the price and quantity of goods and services, control the market. This system is often called a free market, or due to the money aspects, sometimes referred to as capitalism. The political ramifications of the resulting winners and losers also impact the view our government agencies have on the process.
Other countries have tried other systems like socialism, or communism that provide a “fairer” distribution of the market wealth. However, they have found that when the market is not free it shrinks. As governments tax the market wealth to fund themselves, the shrinking market soon ends the government system. Capitalism as a system can have abuses. This has caused both legislative and executive branches of our government to add regulations to control specific situations. Over time the new situations and consequences of previous laws have created a maze of regulation that makes it difficult to do business, thus shrinking the market and the tax base needed to maintain the regulators. Politicians have responded by giving out tax money to specific voter groups.
If regulations had not been defined by government, deregulation would not be needed. Therefore this blog is championing the removal of government rules and regulations in all areas of the marketplace that are shrinking. Recent negative publicity about Wall Street deregulation did not pinpoint the true cause as new regulation of the mortgage business that coincided. The increase in the number of attorneys in the country has coincided with both the growth of regulation and the wording that makes the laws difficult to comprehend. The general population has had so many of their liberties taken away that they seem numb to the effect. A recent “Tea Party” movement, named after the revolutionary founders of the U.S., has publicized the resulting tax burden of excess regulation.
The first sentence of the blog mentioned the principles no longer taught in our schools. A government plan to help children, called “No Child Left Behind”, focused attention on reading, writing, and arithmetic but inadvertently ended social study education. Jesus Garcia, president of the National Council for Social Studies says “We say the purpose of social studies is to help young people make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good in a democratic society in an interdependent world. Historically, social studies have always been one of the core subjects that were dominant in the curriculum.” The result can accurately be characterized as “reeducation”, purposeful or not. A recent textbook requirement change in Texas by the State Board of Education helps, but like all new regulations will have unintended consequences.
An entire generation of American students has not been taught the principles that our society was based on. The expanding tax needs of the government and the shrinking market caused by the excess of regulation makes the urgency to change course quite high. Opinions about what other people should be allowed to do or not do should remain opinions. When they become the law of the land, experience has shown the unintended consequences are devastating. As 2010 is an election year the politicians that voted on or decreed the regulations should be replaced with those who are committed to deregulation. Fewer laws, less government, and more liberty is better. Well meaning regulations end up causing more harm than what they are designed to address.
