But seriously, how bad are the regulations here in the U.S?  Does anybody really know?  Is it a case of any regulation being a bad regulation?

 

Well yes as far as Industry is concerned. 

Unless they're universal.

Corporations don't object to a law that everyone has to obey. At least not nearly as much. They object to any law that gives their competitors an edge. The trouble is: that's every law in a "flat world" where there are plenty of  -stans and -zanias which will permit their companies to do the things we have wisely limited here. Until now.

We weren't uncivilized in the 19th century . We listened to Caruso , read  Walter Scott ,drank lemonade on the front porch.and listened to well meant sermons on Sunday. But barred the doors to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. And

The golf course lies  so near the mill

That almost every day

The laboring children can look out

and watch the men at play*

 

Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn

 

None of which were ended by sermons or more humane sentiments. But by Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin, and Samuel Gompers and Walter Reuther            

Neither did   "move to the back of the bus"  and separate water fountains and lunch counters yield to our better natures. But to LBJ and votes in Congress.

Human nature itself is a weak reed.But a tower of strength compared to the benevolence of corporations.  Nice guys finish last , Leo Durocher used to growl. Ditto for nice companies. No corporation can be more generous than its competitors for long. And even if they could -by virtuie of patents or whatever, no CEO can, because the investors don't want as much money as is left over after treating the employees well. They want as much money as possible.

Which leaves either regulations or what Galbraith called "Counterveiling Powers". In American Capitalism, the Concept of Counterveiling Powers he described the post WWII society in which Corporations' ability to gouge the public was limited by competition in the market and by unions on the shop floor. The first remains but the second was systematically destroyed by legislation going back to the 1940's Landrum/Griffin bill. Somehow the corporate objections to legislation doesn't extend to legislation which gives it the ability to cut wages.

The Madison madness should be seen in this context. Scott Walker and other governors and mayors almost alone in our society still must bargain, dread word, with their workers. But absent collective bargaining, no regulation will protect the workers from the people who write the regulations who will behave as every other unregulated body - giving as little as possible and demanding as much as possible.