Well, I never claimed to have a solution. I was just remarking that "privatize it!" is, alone, not a solution either (although a viable solution might very well

Well, I never claimed to have a solution. I was just remarking that "privatize it!" is, alone, not a solution either (although a viable solution might very well involve privatization). But yes, the eventual reality check of competition, stock prices, &c. is why market-based economies work out better in the end. But that's only a statistical guarantee, and doesn't necessarily help with specific cases, particularly when destruction is somewhat irrevocable, as with depleting wildlife populations. When a massively dysfunctional corporation couldn't really do any permanent damage, giving the market free rein is probably the best choice for average expected outcome. And actually, in some ways regulatory agencies have more incentive to "protect" whatever it is they exist for--they wouldn't have jobs otherwise, and there's less likely to be the destructive short-term incentives pushing in the other direction. The flip side is that they also have incentive to complicate, prolong and expand the scope of whatever problem they're supposed to be "regulating"--eventually "protecting" it to the point where no one wants anything to do with it because of the mountains of paperwork involved. As an aside, this is why unchecked monopolies are so dangerous--no competition means no reality checks and nothing to keep the company from going off the dysfunctional deep end.