That’s a very broad statement. I expect there are many cases where that is not true.
Think pesticides and genetically modified plants for example.
There’s no copper sulfate in canned green beans or borax in beef. Those seem all around good.
Let’s agree that impacts of regulations are nuanced, and not try to condense it down to something overly simplistic like, “regulations hurt poor people”.
Imagine I open a auto repair center and I perform oil changes. It would cost me money to have used oil hauled away or I could dump it down the drain. You probably support a requirement that I pay for the service.
I'm sure there are regulations that cause actual harm to small businesses that have little or no value but I wonder what percentage it would be of the total.
Not to simplify but if you have to make a decision shouldn't you always decide to help the most people?
which isn't to argue that they shouldn't make sense. or that they should be used to tilt the playing field due to corruption, but on the balance claiming that we are currently overregulated is pretty indefensible.
The 'greater good' has arguably PREVENTED much more hurt of people than it has ever hurt. Meanwhile companies have PROVEN time and time again that they WILL hurt people when left to their own devices. In environmental policies. In pay policies. In employment policies. In EVERY aspect possible.
Check your public library.
Yes, not just environmental, all kinds of money stuff. The more money can be how it gets on steroids.
But this says a lot here:
>not try to condense it down to something overly simplistic
With greed involved you can follow the money to an extent, you find lobbyists on both sides of every controversy, sometimes chalking up wins, other times losses. But they stay in business and grow by compromising the greater good with as little profit loss from those paying them the most.
They might switch roles when they lobby in favor of ordinary citizens one time, and squarely against in a future campaign. But they never actually switch sides, the least costly thing to compromise is the "greater good", which ideally from their point of view is intangible, versus actual money, which their clients are usually counting before they have earned any.
It's politics, all regulations are hard to pass, but as lobbying has increased, the difficulty of having good legislation in favor of the greater good is becoming less possible.
It just costs too much to have a seat at the table.
If people want to have good things, it might become completely dependent on older regulations which were in their favor before it got too expensive to do that any more.
Our society has an IRC/USENET problem.