My take on “Something’s fishy in Arizona”

George Will, in the Daily Astorian’s 9/26/11 edition, in “Something’s fishy in Arizona”, outlines a few anecdotes about unfair government regulation. According to Will, government is in cahoots with professional organizations that try to keep out newcomers. Laws are made to please the large organizations, and this stifles opportunities for small businesspeople. Right on, George.

I used to work in state government, in a regulatory agency (though my group didn’t really have any regulatory authority). My gripe was that the laws favored the businesses over the environment (the agency dealt with environmental issues). Our job was to help businesses comply and go beyond compliance with environmental regulations. But permits, regulations and practices allowing polluting businesses to thrive were the main business of our agency.

So I’m with you, George, on the issue of the little guy vs. the big guy. But unfortunately, I think Will’s lament on some regulations for businesses trying to comply with licensing requirements will (no pun intended) be taken by some (and was by me) to be a general knock on government regulations. If the government can’t get it right for these cases, they shouldn’t be allowed to regulate business at all, goes the thinking.

This libertarian outlook is a bit dangerous, I think. The problem is that, while the small businesses mentioned in the article (cosmetology, moving) are unlikely to destroy the environment, kill people, or generally mess things up, there are plenty of businesses, some even “small” by some people’s definition, that either could potentially, or already have, mess(ed) things up. The general call I hear lately for less government regulation is not, I think, about getting nibbled by fish, as the example in the article details. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to remove the protections we enjoy against messing things up.

Pundits like Will are constantly giving examples that can be taken out of context to get across a point. In the case of government regulation, I think we need more, not less. Smart regulation, sure. But despite his protestations to the opposite, the free market is not the be-all and end-all Will makes it out to be. It needs reining in, by the people, to save us from ourselves.