Loading...
 

The Case Against Regulation

Haunted by the Past

Tyrone Friday May 2, 2014

In a New York Review of Books essay entitled, "How Politics Are Haunted by the Past," author Jeremy Waldron reviews two books on politics and liberalism by Alan Ryan. In his essay, Waldron notes:

"We think we know what it is for a people to be ruled by religious law and we look with dismay on the prospect of an Islamic state. ... The early part of Ryan's book helps us re-imagine the hundred different forms in which such united rule was rationalized in Christian polities from 325 to 1648."

Did you know that an established religion was not merely possible, but regarded as essential for over a thousand years? So when you consider that the government regulation of industries, including the financial services industry, is very typical today, and has been regarded as essential by many people for the last several decades, please consider whether it is the only way of doing things.

No one with SilentVault is seeking to establish religion in any country. For my own part, I far prefer the concept of a separation of church and state. Indeed, since the middle of the 17th Century, the idea of an established church receiving direct support from tax funds collected by the state has become anathema in Europe, North and South America, and some parts of Asia. Many people are so used to the idea that they now regard it as absurd to suggest that one might prefer to have an established religion.

Five hundred years go, though, nearly nobody would have thought it possible to have a properly ordered government without having an established religion. Only after a long series of wars, including a Hundred Years war, a vicious and extremely violent Thirty Years war, and extensive philosophical effort did it become possible for republics to spring up without any established religion. The Amsterdam of the early 18th Century and the United States of America of the late 18th Century represent a very different way of doing things, something that would not have been understood nor accepted only two hundred years earlier by the most educated and sophisticated Europeans of the day.

So when you talk about "the need for regulation," when you say that "most people want Bitcoin to be regulated," and when you say that you think the only way forward is to embrace regulation, you might want to consider the possibility that you are haunted by a past that you barely understand. You are saying that for a few decades, the financial services industry has been regulated in many Western economies, and that you cannot imagine any other way of doing things.

The truth, however, is that things change. Everything changes, including the rate at which things change. Arguments from tradition are unlikely to have much impact here. People who say that "we've always done it this way" are going to be presented with a long list of places and times when "we" humans have done things very differently, and with considerable success.

You might not be comfortable with these ideas. You might not like the idea, for example, that I am saying that the use of government regulation to benefit a few players in the financial services industry is immoral, egregious, and disgusting in the same way and to the same extent that the establishment of religion was in Fifteenth Century Spain. You might not like being on the wrong side of an issue, both philosophically and ethically. You might not enjoy learning that economics and praxeology have moved on from the prevailing views in North America in the 1880s when government regulations first began to limit competition in major industries.

So my purpose in this blog is to persuade, argue, and present information that may help you change your mind if you are in favour of government regulation. And if you are against it, as I am, then my discussion and arguments may be useful in your efforts to persuade others, or simply to feel better about your choices.

The best part of this blog is that it is available for users to add their own posts. Please feel free to present your own arguments against regulation. The management of SilentVault reserves the right to remove content if it is intended to direct users toward mal-ware sites, or for other reasons. However, we do prefer to discuss ideas, even when the ideas presented are in contrast to our own views. Let's see how it goes.