ŏ Ŕ ō Ŝ Š ő Ş ȘȞIs Ļere a Bias Toward
Overregulation?*
ţŔōŠ ŕş“Šśś řšŏŔ”œśŢőŞŚřőŚŠŪ
Often it is appropriate to consider the question of government regulation
industry by industry or problem by problem, focusing on specific facts.
Heaven knows there has been enough of the opposite: adopting regula-
tions lightheartedly, as if good intentions were justification enough. On
the other hand, sometimes it is appropriate to step back from a narrowly
factual focus and consider a broader question. Preoccupation with the
immediate and specific is part of the problem with government action.Ȁ
A broader view suggests that our political system harbors a bias toward
overactivity. Regulation is just one of several things that government does
probably too much of. Such a bias, if it does exist, argues for seeking—or
restoring—constitutional restraints on regulatory activity and for not let-
ting each particular issue be decided on its own narrow apparent merits.
Despite the scorn of hard-nosed positivists, human rights belong in the
discussion.
Strictly speaking, perhaps, what argues for restraint is not an incon-
testable bias toward too much regulation but a structure of government
*FromRights and Regulation, eds. Tibor R. Machan and M. Bruce Johnson (San Fran-
cisco and Cambridge, Mass.: Pacific Institute for Public Policy Research and Ballinger,
ȀȈȇȂ),ȈȈ–Ȁȁȅ.
ȀAs F.A. Hayek notes, “we are not fully free to pick and choose whatever combination
of features we wish our society to possess, or to ... build a desirable social order like
a mosaic by selecting whatever particular parts we like best.” Yet this idea “seems to be
intolerable to modern man.” Ļe suggestion draws scorn that unwanted developments may
necessarily stem from earlier decisions. “I am myself now old enough,” Hayek continued,
“to have been told more than once by my elders that certain consequences of their policy
which I foresaw would never occur, and later, when they did appear, to have been told by
younger men that these had been inevitable and quite independent of what in fact was
done” (ȀȈȆȂ, pp.ȄȈ–ȅǿ).
ȂȁȀ