In fact many regulations were fought tooth and nail by corporations. Environmental protection, tobacco health warnings, seat belt mandates, nutritional and cont

In fact many regulations were fought tooth and nail by corporations. Environmental protection, tobacco health warnings, seat belt mandates, nutritional and content warning labels on food. Limitations on misleading adverts. Many, many more. Arguably these regulations promoted competition. By raising awareness of these issues consumer information regulations helped new entrants promote innovative healthier or safer products. Increasing public confidence in a class of products can even make those products more popular. Absent regulation individual companies can become locked into a race to the bottom that can turn a market into a cess pit. But introduce minimum quality standards and consumer confidence and participation can rise. There are spectacular examples of this in developing countries where effective regulation of financial services builds consumer trust and adoption of banking services. Used car sales and prices in many countries boomed when regulations were brought in to ensure customers were properly informed about the car's history and that the cars passed basic checks, because suddenly customers could trust that they weren't being ripped off. The narrative that regulations are necessarily bad for markets is simply not always true.