Revisiting #regulations. It's apparently difficult for people to distinguish between the rhetoric and the measure. A regulation is a restriction on something, not an improvement of something else. The other *can* be a result (one of many possibilities), but the result is not
actually caused by the regulation. So while regulating emissions of certain pollutants adds cost to emitting those pollutants, it does not clean the air. It *can* lead to better air, but it can also lead to emissions of other, less cost-effective pollutants. The regulation is
undoubtedly introduced with the intent of improving air quality, but it is not what the regulation *does*. What it does is only place a restriction on emitting the enumerated pollutants. The reason regulations typically are bad at bringing about the intended outcome, and very
often come with unintended consequences, is that they do *not* in fact create/cause the outcome: they restrict certain behaviors that are imagined or known to cause the undesirable outcome. One reason regulations work so terribly bad is that their basic nature is overlooked, that
those lobbying for, arguing for, and introducing regulations mistake the rhetoric or intended outcome for the means. Those are different things. Regulations are negative measures--restrictions--placed on unwanted actions used with the intent to bring about an outcome that is
assumed to happen if the unwanted action ceases. So the restriction is put in place to divert actions, but not *to* something--only away from! Thus, regulations do not create/improve/facilitate but only restrict. While they are argued for and intended to
bring about some improvement, this is *not* what they do. It amazes me that so few understand this simple fact. To make a better world we need to see through the rhetoric and look at the actual facts. Regulations are restrictions. Period.
I wrote the book on the nature and impact of regulations: store.mises.org/The-Seen-the-U…
