It’s easy to blame deregulation. But there is often an underlying component to this issue.

In many western democracies, especially in the USA, regulations remain well in place when even after they are not very effective in their societal goals. So we have civil servants citing rules and issuing warnings and fines for reasons that were applicable 20 or 30 years ago, but serve little useful purpose today. Hence the cries for deregulation — even if many regulations are still important.

Our democratic legislatures are too busy to deal with modifying and tweaking existing regulation so the regulations remain relevant. So regulations become stale and obselete. The deregulation ideologues may actually be when they say: “No regulations are better than these regulations.” It’s easier to throw out entire set of old legislation than draft a new set.

It’s time we moved beyond our political institutions that were developed circa 1800 and create something better.