The bad people don't disappear when you create gatekeepers. Their power multiplies exponentially, as they use the regulatory process to suppress competition and

The bad people don't disappear when you create gatekeepers. Their power multiplies exponentially, as they use the regulatory process to suppress competition and hold the consumer captive. Theory would suggest that in a free market, people who act maliciously, and fail to build a positive reputation, would steadily be abandoned for those who act benevolently, and succeed in building a positive reputation. This would be a corrective feedback mechanism which steadily makes the social configuration less exploitive, and I think one could reasonably assume it is a far less failure-prone feedback mechanism than periodic political elections. Beyond the theoretical arguments, the empirical evidence suggests this is what happens. For example, countries with lower levels of government spending as a percentage of GDP have on average higher rates of economic development. For a more relevant example, the quality of project needed for a token sale to be successful massively rose between 2015, when the first token sale was announced, and late 2017, when the SEC shut down token sales. The market was evolving, while massively expanding the number of people participating in early-stage investing: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11408-020-00366-0 >"The average ICO has almost 4700 contributors. The median contributor invests a relatively small amount. The ICO market appears to have successfully given access to the financing of innovation to a new class of investors, which is a long-standing public policy issue"