Not all regulations are created equal

Government regulations administered at the federal level became a common practice in the late 19th century. The Industrial Revolution had transformed America from a rural nation dependent on agriculture to a thriving industrial powerhouse just as we are witnessing in China today. The massive transformation meant unprecedented growth, a congregation of population into cities, the creation of the middle class as well as negative effects on society as a whole.

Child labor became a moral issue at the time due to their work conditions. Children as young as four would work long hours in dangerous conditions. According to the Economic History Association, children earned 10-20% of an adult male's wage. They were regularly beaten. Factories would sell orphans and abandoned children and then make them work without pay.

Diseases spread due to cramped living quarters and highly populated cities which did not have sewage systems.

And most famously Upton Sinclair detailed in his investigative novel the wage slavery of immigrants in America. He revealed the harsh reality of the extreme poverty, hopelessness, inhospitable working and living conditions of immigrants as well as the corruption of the powerful. But he’s remembered for his firsthand account of working for seven weeks in a Chicago meat packing factory. The horrid worker conditions and revolting food safety propelled public pressure for the federal government to do something about it. Regulations were the answer.

Regulations ended child labor, helped improve worker conditions and safety, made cities safer and cleaner, and made food safe to eat. All of which increased Americans appetite for more regulations.

But over the course of the 20th century regulations grew and the administrative state expanded. Conservatives rightly argued that regulations had gotten out of control. They were no longer solving problems, but were in fact increasingly intrusive, inflexible, and cumbersome. Regulations had started to become counterproductive.

The rising conservative movement helped create a deregulation movement. But just as the pro regulatory movement had run unconstrained and off course, so has the deregulation movement. All of the 2012 Republican presidential candidates rail against regulations and demonize them as economically hazardous or even unethical.  

However, these candidates are wise enough to know some regulations are essential to our economy and the American way of life. What if there were no airline regulations, food safety regulations, or health care regulations? Americans would be less safe and thus Americans’ standard of living would dramatically fall.

Not all regulations are created equal. Instead of whole heartedly committing ourselves to more regulations as progressives do or destroying regulations as conservatives do, we should focus on what works. That’s the pragmatic perspective.

We will always need regulations to help improve safety, protect consumers from being exploited, and make sure competition is constructive. We should always consider these types of regulations, but in the end it must be cost-benefit analyses to determine if they should be enacted, not some loyalty to an ideology or party orthodoxy.  That’s pragmatism. That’s smart government.

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• Government