Regulation now encompasses everything from the growth of centralized government bureaucracies to the licensing requirements imposed on the smallest economic activities, even running a lemonade stand. This trend suggests that two alternative futures are possible: a world in which regulation extends its tendrils into even more parts of the economy, damaging liberty and opportunity, or one in which regulatory retrenchment allows greater freedom and prosperity.

Pierre Lemieux is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and an Economist in the Department of Management Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (Canada).
Twitter     
Business and EntrepreneurshipEconomic PolicyEconomyGovernment and PoliticsGovernment PowerRegulation
Other Independent Review articles by Pierre Lemieux
Summer 2021 The Impossibility of Populism
Summer 2015 The State and Public Choice
Summer 2006 Social Welfare, State Intervention, and Value Judgments
[View All (7)]