Does anyone know of any articles showing that deregulation does work? I have tried searching Mises and cannot find any. I think the problem is that there has not ever been any true deregulation.
I think so.
Privatization to them seems to mean selling government monopolies.
The only examples I can give off the top of my head are from John Stossel’s Give me a break, where he covers a few cases. Canadian air traffic control was deregulated, with private companies bidding for the jobs, and since then their safety record has been as good or better than the govt’s was, and at a far lower cost. Jersey City, New Jersey privatized it’s water department after the department said they couldnt repair their rusting and leaking pipes without a tax increase. The private, for-profit company repaired or replaced all the pipes, and operates profitably, while also saving the taxpayers $35 million. Pinellas County in Florida bid out its ambulance service, and the company that won upgraded equipment across the board, operated for less cost, made a profit, and response time was quicker. These arent perfect examples, but they’re what I could come up with, and should be shining beacons to people that profit-seeking companies can simply do things better than government because they’re held accountable.
I forgot where I saw this but I seem to remember hearing something about there being 10,000 pages of regulation added in the time leading up to the financial crisis. You know, the same time that there was heavy deregulation.
I think it was Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics, I could be making this whole thing up though.
Deregulation was a common theme in the 70’s and 80’s. On a federal level we’ve successfully deregulated the airlines and the telecommunications industry.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AirlineDeregulation.html
There are plenty of other examples of successful deregulation if you look for them.
Thank you very much for the responses.
yes, the last 300 years