Free Market Myth: Regulation is Everywhere. Let’s Choose who Benefits.
By Dean Baker
January/February 2009, Boston Review
Excerpt:
The extraordinary financial collapse of recent months has been
commonly described as a testament to the failure of deregulation. The
events are indeed testament to a failure—a failure of public policy.
Blaming deregulation is misleading.
In general, political
debates over regulation have been wrongly cast as disputes over the
extent of regulation, with conservatives assumed to prefer less
regulation, while liberals prefer more. In fact conservatives do not
necessarily desire less regulation, nor do liberals necessarily desire
more. Conservatives support regulatory structures that cause income to
flow upward, while liberals support regulatory structures that promote
equality. “Less” regulation does not imply greater inequality, nor is
the reverse true.
The full article can be found here.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the
Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer. He also has a blog on the American Prospect, "Beat the Press,"
where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
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