I have heard countless times from Republicans about the great, God given right to profit from every single human endeavor. Profit is said to be “necessary” as an incentive to investment, hard work, creativity, risk taking – all said to be necessary to improvement of our culture and strength of our economy. These same capitalist-minded servants to the plutocrat winners of this profit-driven economy complain that governmental regulation for fair competition, product safety, workers’ compensation and rights, fair taxation and responsible returns to investors slow the great profit generating apparatus. But as soon as regulation is lessened we see all these problems come to pass – all these as well as rigged markets, price-fixing, ecology destruction, destructive speculation, tax dodging, national and international fiscal crimes, suppression of all competing technologies. All this for products and services that are not designed to eradicate problems, but in fact allow problems to continue indefinitely and hopefully create new problems – all for cash flow, profits, and expanding criminal control in governments around the globe.
In competition, whether high school basketball or trading derivatives, regulation is necessary and desirable. Deregulation corrupts, absolute deregulation corrupts absolutely. Hypothetical Situation: Basketball referees stop calling fouls. Worse Hypothetical Situation: No refs are present. Question: Have you ever witnessed violence?