Remember all the blather from Hillary Clinton and other statist politicians on how they will create “an economy that works for everyone” if put in power? Actually, that is a worthy goal, but the way to go about it is not through ever-increasing government control, but by doing the exact opposite.
So argues Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in this Law & Liberty essay.
The vast regulatory state needs to be dismantled. Murray writes that, “We can think about this in terms of what it takes to build a successful enterprise. The basic building blocks are finance to get it off the ground, energy to power it, and labor to staff it. All three of these factors are highly regulated, and regulations restrict access to entry into the market. Worse, while many such restrictions are often the result of unintended consequences, too often they are by design. Where the free market is providing solutions, regulators seem determined to close them off.”
In America before the New Deal stuck us with the huge burden of federal regulation, the economy teemed with opportunities for everyone. Poor immigrants founded businesses. They didn’t have to ask permission to try innovations. They could hire and fire workers without fear of lawsuits. Capital was available for ideas that seemed promising.
Today, the regulatory behemoth gets in the way at every step.
Read the whole thing.