>>Interestingly, capitalism might be kept in check given a strong enough government (eg. regulations designed and updated smartly to keep corporations from abus

>>Interestingly, capitalism might be kept in check given a strong enough government (eg. regulations designed and updated smartly to keep corporations from abusing the weakest consumers) The regulatory approach is a one-size-fits-all over-simplification of the vast diversity of interactions that take place in an economy consisting of millions of people. If there is an allegation that some party is exploiting another, it has to be provable in a court of law in order to have a reliable indication that the allegation is true. Trying to generalize entire classes of interactions as exploitive and thus worthy of being prohibited is not a good way to organize a complex society. It inhibits opportunity and allows special interests to exploit the population at large through anti-competitive behavior far more than it creates opportunity and reduces exploitation. A well-functioning society needs an active role for the government but that role should be in providing public goods, like objective information resources that consumers can resort to, not in limiting consumers' choices to protect them from their own bad judgment.