It is heartening to see someone who is obviously more politically conservative acknowledge that there can be a place for regulations in the economy. Far too many take a dogmatic position that any regulation of any kind related to business is an economic sin.

All laws regulate behavior. Businesses must be subject to regulation because businesses are run by human beings who are dependent on the business for their income, on which their material well-being depends, who are prone to put their self-interest above even the most commonplace moral rules, like no lying or cheating. People running legal businesses have even been known to kill for profits.

We do need to be careful with regulations,. When negative unforeseen consequences result we need to make necessary adjustments. But the idea that no regulations can be necessary is ludicrous.

The idea that all failures of the capitalistic economic system are only the result of regulations is equally preposterous. In the U.S. the capitalistic economy was almost completely unregulated between the Civil War and the Great Depression, and the economy was may more unstable in that period than it has been since.

I have seen more than one ‘conservative’ blame the Great Recession of 2008 on government due to a lack of oversight — because, you see, all failings of the capitalistic system must somehow not be the fault of ‘government’, not that economic system.

In back of all that is the most insidious proposition of all. In the U.S. it has been the aim of ‘conservatives’ to convince ‘the people’ that government is their enemy, whereas business has only their best interests at heart. No bigger lie has ever been more successfully perpetrated anywhere.