In scanning my memory banks, I have already written some articles about regulation. I recommend “The Destruction of Taxation,” “Free Market Environmentalism,” “Faith in the Free Market,” and “Remembering Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.” Those should give you a pretty good idea of where I stand. I’ll post one about the drug war pretty soon here, too.

Good questions. I should write a post (or several) about the role of government regulation in the marketplace in response to your queries. That would probably be the best way to answer your questions.

In your world, is government only for armies and law enforcement? Aren’t you concerned about unethical market forces (snake oil salesmen)?

Sorry about this threadjack–I know it was about zoning, but I’m curious what you think of term limits…

My point with government regulation is that we need to re-think its role in our economy: what has it done in the past? What have been the desired outcomes as opposed to the actual outcomes? What unintended negative consequences have come about as a result of certain regulations? We have this collective hubris about the ability of government to solve all manner of problems, including what we perceive as market failures. It’s a little like the Titanic. Until we hit an iceberg and have a proverbial sinking, I’m afraid we may not understand how incorrect our philosophy is.

Netscape is still around (at least the shell) in the form of Mozilla, which I highly recommend. Cyberspace is full of Microsoft alternates. Openoffice.org, for instance, which I also recommend. There is a plethora of free software options which can serve a variety of purposes: anti-virus or spyware scanning, gaming, learning, online banking, record-keeping, and of course the ubiquitous instant messaging and emailing. The perfect blend of low cost (what’s cheaper than free?) and high quality is largely due to the unregulated nature of the internet. Take that away (i.e. start regulating things) and many products disappear. It’s easy to see this in the form of the Internet, because it is so new that government hasn’t gotten its dirty hands on it yet. There have been and probably will continue to be plans to regulate cyberspace. But these will largely hinder the internet, not improve it. Such is the case with other economic sectors as well.

We certainly have differences in our view of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. I recommend you look into it a little deeper to see what it purported to do, what it really did, and what the potential negative consequences are. In my opinion, it stifled competition rather than facilitated it, as government regulation almost always does, and is therefore inherently destructive.

By the way, Mitt Romney was not only for farm subsidies, but wanted large increases in the name of “energy independence.” I’m not entirely sure what McCain would do, but I’m guessing a reduction on farm subsidies is not on his list.

As for Microsoft, they have put Word Perfect, Netscape, Real Audio Networks, and many others out of business. Some may say this is good, some bad. Frankly, I was never a fan of Word Perfect, and was glad to see their demise. Word was always much better. On the other hand, Netscape was a great product, and it would have been nice to have some choices. Real Audio has other competitors, and is similar to Novell in that it is still alive, but not the same power broker it used to be.

Frankly, I think Microsoft has used undue influence, as well as anti-competitive programming to gain its monopoly status. (For example, they have actually programmed Windows to cause competitors programs to run slower.) I think MS should be regulated more. To me this is comparable to the early 20th century when the Sherman Anti-trust Act was enacted. Some of these businesses have taken unfair advantage or market economics and are harmful to consumers.

I hear what you’re saying–often regulations, such as farm subsidies, cause problems. However, no regulations also cause problems. If government doesn’t act as a regulator of the market, who else can do it? It is the citizens job to elect ethical politicians. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the citizens to monitor the politicians we elect. Perhaps term-limits would help solve this problem. If we limit the president, why don’t we limit the Congress? Or is that just another bad government regulation?

For instance, consider farm subsidies. The government, through the Department of Agriculture, would parse out money to farms, in an attempt to keep prices high. (President Benson was never a fan of such actions, incidentally, and there is a moral issue here, in my opinion, in addition to the economic one being discussed here.) The idea was to keep family farms in the family. We fast forward a few decades and we see family farms declining as fast as ever. One reason is the subsidy. A larger organization has more resources to take advantage of subsidies. A family farm with fewer financial and temporal resources has a much more difficult time (and much less money to devote to) understanding how to qualify for subsidies, how to fill out the paperwork, how to get all the loopholes correctly navigated, etc. The result is that subsidies give larger organizations a competitive advantage, because they are more able to gather the available funds.

And so we have declining family farms and increasing agribusiness: big bureaucratic organizations running farms, constantly lobbying government for more regulations, more subsidies, more favors. Through regulation and subsidies, the government has certainly helped to facilitate this economic migration. The same goes for land grants, which largely went to a few wealthy landowners for railroad construction in the 19th Century. Guess what? A monopoly resulted from this government-business alliance.

As people influence government to increase regulations, this again benefits those with the most resources, as higher regulations are more expensive for everyone, but larger organizations are most able to navigate the course with their superior resources. They have, for instance, more money available for lobbying.

As for Microsoft being number one, that shouldn’t be a problem. Pressure still exists from Apple, from Linux, and from any potential programmer. When government erects barriers to developing and maintaining competition (i.e. passing regulation to make it nearly impossible for a bedroom programmer to compete with Microsoft), then a monopoly is facilitated and strengthened. De-regulation is a key which allows for market entrants. Regulation just makes it more difficult for entrepreneurs to react, and slows down the economic reaction time. The incentives from competition are reduced, including lower costs and higher quality. Until we understand that regulations is detrimental, not helpful, then the trends will probably continue to add mountains of regulations to regulations of regulations by appointed (unelected) bureaucrats. There will almost always be problems associated with these types of government regulations.

I keep hearing people say that privatizing is the answer to all the ills of society: education, mail, roads, etc. However, any economist will tell you that in some situations, monopoly is a good thing–in these instances a government monopoly. You are very against government intrusions.

In concept, I support this idea. However, I am very concerned about the robber barons of the early 20th century. Teddy Roosevelt was the one who started breaking up these trusts, because they were anti-consumer. In that case, government played a good role. I’m a little leery or returning to some of these monopolies. Government does need to monitor, and keep capitalists under control.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for capitalism, but there must needs be opposition in all things. I think government can play a constructive role in regulating business. I don’t want Microsoft to rule the world. There are some who do.

I also think that government could learn from people like Mitt Romney. Government and business working together for the good of society is the best of all scenarios.

One underlying issue in your community sounds to be government-run roads. Privatizing the road system would likely do wonders. Not that such a move is ever really considered by most. But you bring up a great example of the failures of road socialism.

One of my points is that mixed-use developments are how traditional towns and villages were set up in much of the United States. Zoning practices from decades ago took that away and led to an overall decline in downtown living in many communities. Now we are largely trying to reverse the trend by using mixed-use developments. Much of this country-wide headache and hassle could have been avoided if zoning had a much weaker role in city development. Just like so many areas, government policies lead to a problem, which then leads to more government policies in an attempt to correct the issue. It’s a self-perpetuating problem.

Frankly, my city could greatly benefit with some city planning. With the poor zoning they’ve created a mess of this city. Wasn’t Brigham Young a city planner? Didn’t he zone Salt Lake City? I think city planning and zoning is a good idea.

I don’t know if you’ve looked at London, Paris, and other European towns, or even Eastern US cities like Boston–they can be a nightmare to navigate. Salt Lake’s grid pattern was a great idea, and early church leaders including Joseph Smith zoned areas for temples, agriculture, etc in the city of Independence.

I agree that zoning is not without problems, but it seems like “mixed use development” is a good idea to me. Better planning makes everyone’s lives easier, and I for one would enjoy living in some of these newer communities, with bike trails, recreation, and shopping closer together.

Call me a moderate (you might say liberal, but I don’t go that far.) I think government CAN work for people, but agree that over-zoning and under-zoning also create problems. I prefer the middle.