Are regulations good policy, or are they bad?

If I was being a bit cheeky, I’d answer that with a simple “yes”.

What do I mean?

 

Before we can answer that question, we need to look at what regulations are and why they are written in the first place. Regulations are written either to prohibit or to require certain behaviours.

And why would we create such requirements?

We’ll start with the “thou shalt not” regulations.

Absent regulations, there will be corporations and individuals who will simply dump toxic waste down the drain, in the back 40 or the local river or canal. A lack of regulation is how we end up with such things as the Love Canal.

And what was the Love Canal?

It was a 19^th century unfinished canal project in Niagara Falls New York that became the infamous site of one of America’s worst ecological disasters.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hooker Chemical Company used the Love Canal as a dumping ground for thousands of tons of chemical waste. Once they no longer had a use for the canal, the property was transferred, the canal was filled in, and the area was eventually redeveloped as a residential neighbourhood.

It’s not hard to imagine what happened next.

It was a very unhealthy place to live, and the residents who eventually bought homes in that neighbourhood had little or no idea what was buried beneath their homes.

Sounds awfully illegal, doesn’t it?

Well, it wasn’t. At the time, there were no comprehensive hazardous-waste regulations preventing it. There weren't even regulations requiring the existence of that dump to be disclosed to the people who eventually bought homes there.

This is what a world without regulation looks like!

Regulations exist because without them, people and corporations will cut corners to save money and will engage in behavior that puts others at undue risk.

We have laws that forbid murder.

Why?

Because people sometimes deliberately kill other people.

If no one ever committed murder, then we'd have no need for a law forbidding it. The law exists because people do it. That's what regulation is all about.

We also have the “thou shalt” regulations.

These regulations require such things as safety guards, and safety shoes, construction helmets and haz-mat suits.

Why?

Because without those regulations, many employers would, and more importantly, didn’t provide that gear. Once upon a time, high on the job fatality rates were just the norm. Once upon a time, miners filled their lungs with the asbestos they inhaled. You could argue that we didn’t know better, that we didn’t understand the danger. However, it wasn’t when we came to understand the danger that the practice stopped. It was when regulations were passed requiring appropriate safety precautions be taken, that the practice was stopped. And the corporations that profited from the asbestos trade, fought those regulations tooth and nail, from beginning to end.

And that’s my point, regardless of what we know, without regulation there will always be someone willing to cut that corner. Even with regulation, there sometimes is, but at least with regulation, there are consequences for such reckless behaviour.

That’s what regulation is!

So, all regulations are good?

No, not all. Sometimes regulations outlive their usefulness. Times change and regulations must change too.

Sometimes regulations are ill advised and poorly thought out in the first place. Mistakes happen and those regulations ought to be scrapped too.

But far too often, we simply hear the mantra that regulation is somehow simply wrong and that all it does is interfere in business and in our daily lives.

For corporations who place their bottom lines above all else, regulations most definitely are a hindrance. Such corporate entities spend vast sums promoting deregulation. Again, there are regulations that do more harm than good, but these corporate entities aren't that narrowly focused.

Those that shout “deregulate, all regulation is bad”, they want all regulations that impede their ability to maximize their profits removed, regardless of the cost to society.

Proper regulations, properly enforced, are absolutely necessary.

If a specific regulation is ill-conceived or out-of-date, make your case, but if you simply oppose regulation entirely, you just don’t want to be responsible for the consequences of your actions.

You want the freedom to do whatever you want … and you want someone else to pay the price.

That’s what deregulation is!