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Business can’t regulate, so government must

November 7, 2008 on 5:11 pm | In Social & Political Issues | No Comments

There are only two ways in the civilized world that vital human services can be provided. And, yes, either way it means “regulation,” that voodoo word which creeps out Neocons and has been regarded by recent Canadian and American governments as the greatest evil since Karl Marx.

Yet this time, voters didn’t bite south of the 49th parallel border. And in Ottawa we’re seeing a slight change of heart (more likely a coming to senses) with new rules regulating meat packers in the wake of the Listeria scandal that resulted in deaths.

One would think that earlier Neocon Tories might have corrected that sort of nonsense after the tragedy of Walkerton, Ont., where deaths were caused by tainted water in the wake of deregulation under Premier Mike Harris.

Regulation is what civilization is all about. We hear the argument that you don’t want a bureaucrat telling you what kind of health care you can have, so you’ve got to privatize that.

Well, you certainly wouldn’t rather have an overpaid CEO telling you what you’re going to get, and how much you’ll pay him for it, would you?

It’s not as if there are great numbers of choices. Either you have a responsive and competent government regulating such things, or you are in the grip of people who have every incentive to give the least for the most.

When it comes to natural monopolies—created either by necessary huge economies of scale, or vital need—government must regulate. Servants of big business have no business in government.

That’s why such drones as lobbyists should be banished from government halls. They specialize in misleading politicians and civil servants on behalf of their clients rather than on what’s good for the public.

Regulation—effective, balanced and competent—is the job of government. Otherwise all it’s good for is raising armies because even the printing of money has been wrongly transferred over to the private sector, at least in the U.S.
Frank Touby