License They Mean When They Cry Liberty

For 40 years we have been deregulating and cutting taxes and the size of government. The price has been enormous. Politicians take bribes and get reelected. Bankers fake sworn documents and are bailed out. Bishops shuffle pedophiles around and are promoted. The military tortures with no consequences. Now, the Republican presidential nominating process reveals an insane drive to deregulate further.

Deregulation is a weapon of mass destruction. It begins as a demand for liberty but morphs into a demand for freedom from restraint of any kind, be it civil, moral, institutional or economic. It strikes at the concepts that underpin our civil and moral community. The regulations still exist but nobody is enforcing them because, they claim, regulation is too "costly." But that's wrong. Regulation does not increase costs. It mostly reassigns existing costs to the real users.

The 1970s deregulation of transportation, energy and communications struck at the New Deal regulation that had served us so well. It was the beginning of our nightmare. Our great interstate system of highways and bridges is falling apart as too expensive to repair. Airline fares may be lower but the airlines are near bankruptcy and are trying to make up the difference with oddball fees. America deregulated the railroads and lost them years ago.

Energy got deregulated but someday we, not the corporate owners, are going to have to pay the enormous cost of the cleanup of nuclear waste. Pennsylvania's Governor Corbett may block any tax on Marcellus Shale but then coal left a mess, why shouldn't natural gas? We gave away the broadcast bands to the entertainment industry instead of regulating them.

Deregulation of the banking industry is at the heart of the economic and financial crisis we are still in. The financial sector bought deregulation, received trillions of dollars and whines it is not enough. We are still not following the regulations and forcing the banks to pay up. The crisis in Greece stems directly from Goldman Sachs evading international regulation. President Obama busted the budget to avoid an economic catastrophe and banking collapse but we, not the bankers, are going to pay.

The call for even more deregulation and even smaller government means it is time to reassert some of the reasons for regulation and for the expansion of taxes and spending.

Government exists in the first place to protect the individual citizen and his or her private property. Most of us, but maybe not the Libertarians, recognize that private property requires the regulation of trade and commerce, the enforcement contracts and the flow of credit. All of this requires enforcement of rights and responsibilities. Our liberty is protected by those regulations.

The problem that is not recognized by Libertarians, and now it seems the Republicans, is that every exchange affects third parties. This is true of all goods but also in regard to the institutions, virtues and physical world we hold in common. Regulation is more than an economic problem.

As private transactions become more complicated and affect more areas of our lives, more regulation is necessary. The government has to ensure that the individual buying a paper product is paying the cost of cleaning up the water the paper mill uses. The user of the Marcellus Shale natural gas has to be made to pay the cost of potential earthquakes caused by fracking. It is cheaper to regulate than to remove poisonous Chinese wallboard. Economic expansion and globalization require more, not less, regulation.

The private individuals and corporations who are demanding the deregulation of banking do not want to have to pay for cleaning up profitable but illegal mortgages. This is the reason that lobbyists spend so much money to protect their wealthy clients. Those clients would otherwise have to pay the full cost of their actions. Deregulation is the way to buy a license to burn, rape and pillage.

It goes even further than that. Deregulation has affected not just the physical world in which we live but the character of our people and the institutions that hold us together. Middle-class America was built on a foundation of respect for the law, the habit of hard work and the commitment to a shared community. The deregulation of the past 40 years undermined respect for law, denied to workers their place on the social ladder and eroded the community values that held us all together.

The Constitution and the regulations and laws based on it constitute a commons that we have seriously neglected. Politicians and bankers, bishops and generals no longer respect the rules. Regulators like the SEC, FDA, FTC, etc. let violators sign consent orders and avoid criminal prosecution.

Look at the Republicans who are aspiring to the presidency. Their lack of respect for each other and the process speaks to a society that has lost faith in its ability to govern, that is to regulate itself. America must again cherish and respect the rules we live by, not deregulate and disrespect our commons.

"License they mean when they cry liberty." John Milton