Operation: Iraqi Freedom
Clown's War Council

If I were King
Clown
Paulie

Assuming the future is predictable lulls us into a “one best way” mentality. If we assume that the gasoline-powered automobile is the best we can do for personal transportation, forcing manufacturers to increase fuel efficiency makes sense. If, however, we do not want to limit ourselves to gasoline-powered automobiles, then we should not force personal transportation companies to limit their thinking to gasoline-powered automobiles. Money spent on building a more efficient gasoline engine may have been money spent on building a practical fuel cell powered automobile. Or maybe it would have been spent on a personal flying machine that is powered by the sun. We might all be flying by now! Who knows?

It is tempting to say that the money companies are forced to spend on improving fuel standards does not distract them from exploring fuel cells, flying machines, and anything else they please. Indeed, automobile manufacturers have researched electric cars for years; and for the first time practical hybrid cars are being marketed by major companies. This does not matter though. Whether a company is forced to spend all their money, half their money, or just 1% of their money on something they otherwise would not, is irrelevant. Thinking is still limited. Perhaps if the money and the thinking were freed, the hybrid cars would have come to market 10 years ago or we would be a year away from personal flying machines right now. Nobody can prove what that extra money would have brought or what it can bring. So nobody should have the power say how that extra money is spent.

Another objection to “anti-regulation” (laissez faire) is that some regulations just make good common sense, and we should all give up some personal freedom for the “greater good.” We hear phrases like “common sense gun laws” or “common sense environmental regulations,” etc. This has the political advantage of implying that anybody who disagrees has no common sense. In reality, however, the words “common sense” should be considered a red flag when uttered by a politician or media type. In the case of our emissions example, we hear “lowering pollution just makes good sense, doesn’t it?” Only a fool would say no. Indeed, lowering pollution makes sense. The problem is that the politico doesn’t care to let us determine, on our own, how we’ll lower pollution. He wants to limit us to the one best way – his way – which is inevitably some form of limitation on market activity. The revered “common sense approach” is just another way of saying regulation think, which is, of course, a form of groupthink. No opportunity for creative thinking is afforded. In fact creative thinking is effectively outlawed.

The result is that we only think within the confines of regulation, instead of thinking creatively. Non-regulatory solutions are given no merit. Indeed, they can easily be made to sound absurd: so we abolish the emissions laws, and then fuel cells and flying machines will magically appear? Ha! The creative thinker is laughed away, and the regulation thinker is regarded as infallible. We cease to believe that we are even capable of ideas. And so we are stuck with emissions tests instead of solar-fueled personal flying machines. How boring!

Though examples of regulation think can be drawn from any number of topics, the environment is especially fascinating. More than any other topic, the environment generates regulation-think. Even free-market thinkers who generally shun regulation often make exceptions for the environment. Because public land and water are at stake, we automatically jump to regulation-think. What about privatizing the public lands and waters? Never mind whether this would work, the idea actually angers us; politically it is a third rail. Of course, polluted public land and water angers us too. Yet we refuse to honestly consider options outside of regulation. The creative thinker is locked out of the environment conversation more than any other.

The irony of this is that the environment has always benefited from lack of regulation. Entrepreneurs have been inventing cleaner and cleaner technology for decades – and they have not done this to save the environment; they have done it to make more money for themselves. We must remember that pollution is waste, and waste is terrible for business: generates costs but no revenues. The natural inclination in business is not to pollute. If an automobile assembly line could be fueled with free sunlight, rather than costly coal generated electricity, management would switch in a minute – to save money. And who knows? Had businesses and individuals not been forced to commit such time and money to comply with environmental laws, perhaps a sunlight fueled assembly line would already be a reality. Laughing? Creative thinking again.

There is never a way to prove what may have occurred, or what will occur, absent the allocation of personal resources by a public hand. Even if there is one best way, there is no reason to believe that the public hand guides us there. In fact there are countless examples where, if not the best way, at least the better way was discovered and implemented by private individuals or companies – often to the chagrin of government or regulation-thinkers.