Is the US economy deregulated?

[Basileos Leandros I]

Ha, John Oliver in his new segment is covering the meatpacking industry and the lack of safety protocols because why should there be proper protocols.



-Posts moved from there. ~Abdülmecid

[Sir Adrian]

B-b-but the US has regulations.

[Cope]

You're mixing up oranges and pigs and calling it lettuce. Lessaiz faire refers to the state's intervention in the economy, meaning state capitalism, protectionism, etc. Regulations are about protecting the consumers and setting minimum standards of behavior and quality for producers and service providers.

Not allowing scumbags to sell chlorinated chicken or to put led in toys has absolutely nothing with lessaiz faire. The US is suffering on this front.There is a minimum of regulation but even that is not respected due to lobby groups and mountains of lawsuits.

The US economy is not regulated. If it was regulated this thread would not exist.

Wrong.

Laissez-faire (/ˌlɛseɪˈfɛər/; French: [lɛsefɛʁ] (listen); from French: laissez faire, lit. 'let do') is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from or almost free from any form of economic interventionism such as regulation and subsidies.

Wikipedia

Ha, John Oliver in his new segment is covering the meatpacking industry and the lack of safety protocols because why should there be proper protocols.

The Global Food Security Index ranks US food 3rd out of 113 countries. That's above every European country other than Ireland. On quality and safety specifically, it is ranked 4th.

[Sir Adrian]

You say I'm wrong then post a definition which agrees with me. regulation in that context means limiting the transactions, such as you are only allowed to sell x amounts of onions per day. There are market regulations, which is what your recently edited wikipedia article talks about, and there are quality regulations which are a completely different kettle of fish and have no impact on the former.

You are allowed to sell as much flower per day as you can as long as it is flower and not chalk - regulated, still conforms to laissez-faire.
You are allowed to only sell 5 kilogram of flour per day. There are no regulations against adulteration with chalk - not regulated, does not conform with your definition of laessez-faire.

Everybody is allowed to trade mortgage backed securities on the stock market if they can afford it. The securities have to be rated according to their composition by the SEC to be allowed on the market - Laissez-faire and regulation
There is a 1.5 billion dollar buy-in to be allowed to trade mortgage backed securities. Ratings are done by private agents operating in competition with one another - Not laissez-faire, not regulated.

Do you get it now? I cannot make this any simpler.


The US is not a regulated economy, not by western standards. The examples supporting this are literally legion. As I said, if there were regulations in place, the equipment would have been winterized, no discussion, and this thread would not exist.

[Cope]

You say I'm wrong then post a definition which agrees with me.

You claimed: "Lessaiz [sic] faire refers to the state's intervention in the economy, meaning state capitalism, protectionism, etc."

This is the exact opposite of laissez faire economics.

State capitalism is used by various authors in reference to a private capitalist economy controlled by a state, i.e. a private economy that is subject to economic planning and interventionism. It has also been used to describe the controlled economies of the Great Powers during World War I. Alternatively, state capitalism may refer to an economic system where the means of production are privately owned, but the state has considerable control over the allocation of credit and investment. This was the case of Western European countries during the post-war consensus and of France during the period of dirigisme after World War II. Other examples include Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Russia under Vladimir Putin, Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as well as military dictatorships during the Cold War and fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany.

State capitalism has also come to be used sometimes interchangeably with state monopoly capitalism to describe a system where the state intervenes in the economy to protect and advance the interests of big business and large-scale businesses. Noam Chomsky, a libertarian socialist, applies the term 'state capitalism' to the economy of the United States, where large enterprises that are deemed "too big to fail" receive publicly funded government bailouts that mitigate the firms' assumption of risk and undermine market laws, and where private production is largely funded by the state at public expense, but private owners reap the profits. This practice is in contrast with the ideals of both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Wikipedia

[Basileos Leandros I]

The Global Food Security Index ranks US food 3rd out of 113 countries. That's above every European country other than Ireland. On quality and safety specifically, it is ranked 4th.

That has nothing to do with the issue described above. Food security and quality has nothing to do with the little employee protection, as outlined above with clear sources / articles / interviews / videos. It's 2 different things.

USA is by definition a deregulated capitalist economic system.

In fact, if you even look at the Wiki article for Deregulation, guess what the biggest chapter is? United States deregulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation

[Cyclops]

Obviously deregulation allows for rapid transfers of capital and is part of the US systems great economic strength and versatility. It also has a human cost, and exposes the community to this sort of compounding disaster. As with the energy sector in California (and the resource industries more generally) the wealth generated by private interests has given them the political power to skew the cost and benefit balance way toward the vulture capital/rentier class and away from more productive capitalism and "we, the people".

[Cope]

That has nothing to do with the issue described above. Food security and quality has nothing to do with the little employee protection, as outlined above with clear sources / articles / interviews / videos. It's 2 different things.

USA is by definition a deregulated capitalist economic system.

In fact, if you even look at the Wiki article for Deregulation, guess what the biggest chapter is? United States deregulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulation

A self-defeating point: an economy cannot be "deregulated" unless it is regulated.

[Genava]

A self-defeating point: an economy cannot be "deregulated" unless it is regulated.

An economy cannot be entirely regulated or deregulated in absolute. Deregulation is simply a direction toward less regulation. But there is ALWAYS some.

People calling a state's economy "regulated" or "deregulated" is simply a BS label rising from an ideological perception, ending with an arbitrary threshold constituting the limit between both.

[Basileos Leandros I]

A self-defeating point: an economy cannot be "deregulated" unless it is regulated.

You're confirming the point I am making - there is low regulation in the USA. It's deregulated compared to the rest of the Western world - aka the European Union.

Case in point - GMO's are heavily restricted, almost banned in the EU, GMO's are allowed in the USA. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[Coughdrop addict]

Obviously deregulation allows for rapid transfers of capital and is part of the US systems great economic strength and versatility. It also has a human cost, and exposes the community to this sort of compounding disaster. As with the energy sector in California (and the resource industries more generally) the wealth generated by private interests has given them the political power to skew the cost and benefit balance way toward the vulture capital/rentier class and away from more productive capitalism and "we, the people".

Republican economic "theory" exploits a vicious cycle: cut back on public investment and regulations, let corporations run riot, squeeze every dime they possibly can from the working class while cutting taxes for the idle rich, and the resulting economic and social disasters create a crisis that the Republicans pledge to "fix" with more of the same.

[Cope]

You're confirming the point I am making - there is low regulation in the USA. It's deregulated compared to the rest of the Western world - aka the European Union.

Case in point - GMO's are heavily restricted, almost banned in the EU, GMO's are allowed in the USA. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Refer to my original post. I made no claim regarding the extent of regulation in the US compared to other economies. That said, the US's regulatory standards are comparable to other high-income industrial societies, including many in the European Union. The Fraser Institute published an "economic freedom" report in 2017 which scored (and ranked) countries according to, among other things, their regulatory standards.

Here is a selection of their regulatory scores (only high-income, industrial societies included):

France 7.3
Germany 7.9
Netherlands 8.2
UK 8.3
Australia 8.4
Denmark 8.5
Canada 8.5
Switzerland 8.6
United States 8.8
Ireland 8.8
New Zealand 9.1

Economic Freedom Report

[Genava]

Refer to my original post. I made no claim regarding the extent of regulation in the US compared to other economies. That said, the US's regulatory standards are comparable to other high-income industrial societies, including many in the European Union. The Fraser Institute published an "economic freedom" report in 2017 which scored (and ranked) countries according to, among other things, their regulatory standards.

Here is a selection of their regulatory scores (only high-income, industrial societies included):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

Edit: returning to the matter of dispute, the economic freedom has little to do with agro-business standards, nor with water quality controls, neither with social protection.

[Cyclops]

Republican economic "theory" exploits a vicious cycle: cut back on public investment and regulations, let corporations run riot, squeeze every dime they possibly can from the working class while cutting taxes for the idle rich, and the resulting economic and social disasters create a crisis that the Republicans pledge to "fix" with more of the same.

Not sure its that simple, and the policy settings evolve over time. Democrats cheerfully participate in the cycle as it gives their backers a turn in power.

Longer term, the Republicans deregulated slavery out of existence, but also regulated alcohol into more or less an illegal drug.

More recently Bill Clinton actually signed NAFTA which deregulated large sections of US manufacturing out of existence. Clinton and Bush both deregulated the arse off the stock markets and financial sectors leading to the 2008 disaster.

Certainly Big Oil has been steering important sections of the Republican party, undermining non-Big oil candidates etc, and they are keen to roll back a lot of environmental controls.

[Cope]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

Edit: returning to the matter of dispute, the economic freedom has little to do with agro-business standards, nor with water quality controls, neither with social protection.

The cited Economic Freedom of the World: 2017 Annual Report (different from the Index of Economic Freedom) treats regulation as a distinct area of analysis. The regulation category is split into three subcategories (credit market regulations, labour market regulations and business regulations) each of which are broken down into further subcategories (e.g. hiring regulations, hours regulations and licensing restrictions).

The scores provided in post #12 were not overall economic freedom scores; they were regulatory scores specifically. The EFW report also provided scores for the three subcategories, which were averaged out to provide the cited overall regulatory scores.

Based on these scores (rather than cherry-picked examples), we can deduce that the United States' regulatory standards are broadly comparable to many other high-income industrial countries, including some EU member states.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Based on these scores (rather than cherry-picked examples), we can deduce that the United States' regulatory standards are broadly comparable to many other high-income industrial countries, including some EU member states.

Because some aspects are heavily regulated while some are not. There is a significant imbalance.

Let me give you a clear example which I know personally - car regulations. In the USA, you cannot legally import a car under 25 years old if it's not following some specific federal mandates, like those absolutely horrendous looking boxy bumpers they have to attach to the cars. Individuals don't have the financial power to do so - so unless your manufacturer says "we are bringing this to the USA" you have no chance but to wait 25 years to get that car. This is extremely restrictive / regulated and a lot of frustration for car fans like me. A lot of great cars available in Europe are simply not sent to the US because of US regulations.

Even more, the USA has the dealership system which is strictly regulated in terms of selling cars. This requires certifications, various approvals, certain standards... which also makes it unavailable for you to buy directly from the manufacturer if you want to. This is also one of the reasons why TESLA is talked about so much in terms of their business model because they refuse to work with dealers.

Even even more, the US emissions regulations are in fact stricter than the ones in Europe. California sets the tone in the US for emissions regulations, as it's the largest economy, so manufacturers follow what the CARB (California board) says so. This in turn influenced EU regulations on emissions. Here's a policy paper from the EU - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegDa...)595363_EN.pdf

[Cyclops]

....

Let me give you a clear example which I know personally - car regulations. In the USA, you cannot legally import a car under 25 years old if it's not following some specific federal mandates, like those absolutely horrendous looking boxy bumpers they have to attach to the cars. Individuals don't have the financial power to do so - so unless your manufacturer says "we are bringing this to the USA" you have no chance but to wait 25 years to get that car. This is extremely restrictive / regulated and a lot of frustration for car fans like me. A lot of great cars available in Europe are simply not sent to the US because of US regulations.

...

Australia had something similar with certain manufacturing areas, I think lightbulbs was an example, where strangely specific manufacturing requirements were made before items could be sold (that local manufacturers had already tooled up for) and when foreign competitors complained it was protectionism the trade dept replied "nO iTs A sAfTeY MeAsUrE". Is the bumper thing you mention possibly partly a protectionist measure too?

There are real regulatory measures too, Australian agriculture has been spared a lot of common pests because of past isolation so imported nuts get gassed, berries and some other fruit get nuked etc. to eliminate those pests. i think the US has some areas regulated for pretty sensible reasons.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Australia had something similar with certain manufacturing areas, I think lightbulbs was an example, where strangely specific manufacturing requirements were made before items could be sold (that local manufacturers had already tooled up for) and when foreign competitors complained it was protectionism the trade dept replied "nO iTs A sAfTeY MeAsUrE". Is the bumper thing you mention possibly partly a protectionist measure too?

There are real regulatory measures too, Australian agriculture has been spared a lot of common pests because of past isolation so imported nuts get gassed, berries and some other fruit get nuked etc. to eliminate those pests. i think the US has some areas regulated for pretty sensible reasons.

It's quite possible that it was made as a protectionist measure. Even today you can see sleek hypercars costing millions of dollars will tacked on, heavy rubber-plastic rear-end bumpers because of these US regulations. This also meant that a lot of European companies are not available directly in the USA because of these heavy handed regulations. Citroen after selling a metric tonne of Citroen SM in the 1970's was forced to leave due to the new regulations. Hasn't been back since.

Sometimes though, heavy regulations create totally new markets, like the famous Porsche 911 Targa which was created as a result of US regulations about convertibles using roll bars.

Here's a good round-up of the story - https://www.autocar.co.uk/slideshow/...ked-us-rules#6

[Ludicus]

The Global Food Security Index ranks US food 3rd out of 113 countries.

In what concerns the performance of countries based on their 2020 food security score, the US ranks 11th. (overall score)

On quality and safety specifically, it is ranked 4th.

US and Austria ranked 2th. (94.3)