Frank Herbert says this better than I can in "Chapterhouse Dune", where the captured Bene Gesserit Lucilla is speaking to Spider Queen, head of the Honoured Mat

Frank Herbert says this better than I can in "Chapterhouse Dune", where the captured Bene Gesserit Lucilla is speaking to Spider Queen, head of the Honoured Matres (p 150--158.) (Actually the whole book is about law and governance.) An excerpt: "That's not what I said. We have no conventional government." "Not even a social code?" "There's no such thing as a social code to meet all necessities. A crime in one society can be a moral requirement in another society." "People always have government." ... "I knew you didn't allow a democracy!" "Why won't you believe me?" [...] "Because you'd have to permit open voting, juries and judges and . . ." "We call them Proctors. A sort of jury of the Whole." Now you've confused her. "And no laws . . . regulations, whatever you want to call them?" "Didn't I say we defined them separately? Regulation-past. Law-future." "You limit these . . . these Proctors, somehow!" "They can arrive at any decision they desire, the way a jury should function. The law be damned!" "That's a very disturbing idea." She's disturbed all right. Look at how dull her eyes are. "The first rule of our democracy: no laws restricting juries. Such laws are stupid. It's astonishing how stupid humans can be when acting in small, self- serving groups." --- To relate this more directly to your point; if we take the definition of regulation as past and law as future, then regulation is almost by definition a tool of the monopolist and the vested interests. However, in the case given here, the problem is a monopoly, and we have a law against monopolies, that can interpret things sensibly, and will ultimately go before a court with a jury that can suggest and enforce radical solutions. We don't need new regulation to fix the credit and debit card market -- we need to kick existing law into action.