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Before Asking The Government To Regulate Private Business, Let’s See How Successfully The Government Regulates Itself

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Whenever a private business takes actions that result in injury or death to someone, there is invariably a demand for more government regulation of that business.  But first let’s take a look at how effective the government is in protecting people within its own institutions.

1.  NASA  - We have recently learned that the deaths of our astronauts in the Columbia shuttle resulted not from a freak accident but rather from an institutionalized disregard for safety within NASA (a government entity).  It should be noted that this is not new.  The same problem was discovered in the investigation of the Challenger disaster.  Obviously, the government has not done a very good job of regulating itself to protect the innocent shuttle passengers.  According to the report, the incentives within NASA were to cover up problems, not to make the product safer. 

2.  Prison Murder - The Catholic priest who was convicted of molesting so many children in Massachusetts has now been murdered by a fellow convict.  The prison officials (government) knew the priest might be a target and were supposed to be taking all possible precautions to protect his life.  However, after rendering the priest incapable of protecting himself, and even in a prison, with lots of iron bars, padlocks, and guards with guns, the government failed to protect this man’s life. 

3.  Women in Military Academies – It has now been reported that many female cadets have been the victims of sexual abuse as part of their experience of attending a military academy (government institution), with most of the women being afraid to report the crimes.  This is outrageous!  Students attending a military academy certainly should be able to feel safe and not have to fear assault from their fellow students.  Again, the government has failed to provide protection for these students.

4.  The Children – States have removed many children from their homes in order to protect the children and have put these children into foster care, with social workers responsible to check on the children.  The foster families have been screened by the states and are paid by the states to care for the children, and the social workers are paid by the states to follow up and check on the children, but still many children are abused by their foster families and many are even lost and completely unaccounted for.  Once again, the government institutions have proven themselves to be incompetent at protecting the people they are charged to protect.  Of course, the government schools also fail many children, allowing them to “fall through the cracks”, not learning to read and write, despite thousands of dollars being spent for each child each year.

Maybe it is finally time even for the knee-jerk demanders of government regulation to recognize that government regulation is no cure-all.  Government regulators are just as subject to incompetence and corruption as anyone else, and they do not have the discipline of the marketplace to keep them honest and effective in their jobs.  In most cases, what is really needed is privatization and competition.  For example, private space travel companies would compete to be safer and better, and they would be held legally accountable for their negligence.  Thus, they would have a much greater incentive to be concerned about safety than does NASA or any other government entity.  If a private college allowed as many of its students to be sexually abused as have the military academies, it would be subject to lawsuits and might well be driven out of business.  And parents, with very few exceptions, do a far better job of raising and protecting children than do states. In the vast majority of cases, the threat of competition and the threat of lawsuits holding businesses responsible for their actions do a far better job of protecting innocent people than government regulations.

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