Probably no other group of actions gets more reaction than those that are designed to give people”s lives more order, greater safety, better health, and so on: Rules; laws; and regulations.
In every case, they target the greater benefit for the greater number and are expensive to place in effect and enforce.
On the other hand, they also may be costly when they affect practices and methodology considered damaging to the population and are perceived by the perpetrators as breaches or inhibitions of free enterprise.
Certainly not a new concept, even animals have certain social orders. For humans, they probably started when the first two people got together. For example, I am sure it was civil unrest and no accident that led to Moses coming down the mountain with the Ten Commandments.
And things have gotten more and more complicated as human life got more complex. Inevitably the social needs of people, politics, and religion have become intermingled and we now have more regulations than are probably needed.
But still, because we people are so afraid of risk, we put up with things like laws and the expense of enforcing them because we fear the alternative would be more dangerous and inconvenient.
Game rules exist to provide structure and order, and, we hope, to prevent one player taking unfair advantage over another. Most regulations are intended to improve the health, safety, and well being of the people and it is in this area that perceived public benefit and the concept of free enterprise come into conflict.
Part of the problem is that the average consumer has no idea of the producer cost involved in making the changes mandated to enable people to feel more comfortable, because the cost is passed on to the consumer in raised prices, as it should be.
Good and specific examples are OSHA and Cal/OSHA and the immense costs to revise facilities to meet ADA requirements.
Other times effective laws have been rescinded much to the expense of the people. The elimination of the Glass-Steagle Act that kept banks from using depositors funds for their own benefit set the stage for the disaster of the late 2000s.
The point to all this is that, whether we like regulations or not, they exist because of the will of the majority of the people.
They can be created, revised, eliminated or changed if the people will it, but too many of us don”t choose to take action or stir up all that bother. We would rather complain about them.
Guthrie “Guff” Worth
Lakeport
