Removing bad laws and adding good ones aims at the same goal. Surely bad regulation should be removed. It's required, but it's not necessarily sufficient.
Unregulated market usually doesn't work (i.e. it degrades into monopoly which is the opposite of the free market) when competition is way below a healthy level. For example as others pointed above, classifying ISPs as common carriers is an example of good law which should be added.
Unregulated market usually doesn't work (i.e. it degrades into monopoly which is the opposite of the free market) when competition is way below a healthy level.
Can you give me an example of a market which has no specific regulations, where the State only enforces basic stuff (personal safety, property and contracts)?
I think you'll be hard pressed to find one. Regulation is pervasive. When people claim that a certain market is unregulated, it usually means it lacks the regulations they find important, not that it's actually unregulated.
How is is related to the main point above? You seemed to imply, that only reducing regulation can solve problems, while adding it does not. That was the focus of the discussion. Adding regulations can be a necessity. Why for example such concept as "common carriers" even exist?
You stood your point about regulations being necessary on the fact that unregulated markets tend to degrade into monopolies.
My point is that we don't know that, because we don't actually know what unregulated markets look like, so your argument is unsupported.
Adding regulations can be a necessity. Why for example such concept as "common carriers" even exist?
Because some people think that regulations are necessary. That doesn't mean they're right. To make a poor analogy, there's also a concept of aliens, but the existence of the concept doesn't prove the existence of the aliens, right?
> unregulated markets tend to degrade into monopolies.
That's right. They can degrade into monopolies when competition is low. It's the whole basis of the antitrust laws for example. Or you think such regulation is not needed?
> Because some people think that regulations are necessary.
They are necessary, especially when greed and lack of competition turns into anti-consumer attitude. No regulations means "let's trust these companies, they won't turn into thugs" and "invisible hand of the market will correct things". It doesn't work that way in practice.
They can degrade into monopolies when competition is low. It's the whole basis of the antitrust laws for example. Or you think such regulation is not needed?
I don't know. Is it? I can believe that some markets degrade into monopolies when competition is low. But all of those have been regulated markets, because as I've wrote, regulation is pervasive. I'm not convinced that we know what actually happens in unregulated markets.
No regulations means "let's trust these companies, they won't turn into thugs" and "invisible hand of the market will correct things". It doesn't work that way in practice.
How do you know? That's why I asked: can you give me one example of an unregulated market?
How do I know what? That it's the position of those who want to reduce regulation (that market can fix itself on its own)? Or how do I know that it doesn't work when some entity gets too much control and power and prevents such fixing?
One of the examples of what a complete monopoly is about, was USSR (it's kind of an anti-example, but that's exactly the point - a monopoly is the opposite of the free market). I.e. in that case the state had a complete monopoly over the market. Imagine a corporation like MS being the size of the country and controlling all markets altogether. That's what needs to be avoided. The logic is, that if the monopoly does happen, expecting it to fix itself with the "invisible hand of the market" is absurd. It's like expecting a dictator to depose oneself. So the antitrust law is built as a safety measure to prevent such thing from happening.
But removing those laws is removing regulation, not adding it. Regulation is not just the "good" laws.