7 ms·

I have some Atlas Shrugged vibes

bpodgursky 4y ago
The part where federal bureaucrats ordered a train to unsafely transit a tunnel and caused a massive explosion?
throwway120385 4y ago
Her whole deal in that book was that regulations are bad and that they are used as a cudgel by established players. Here we have an example of what happens when regulations are rolled back -- the profit motive takes over, eliminates safety measures, and eventually creates superfund sites. One of Rand's examples of a bad regulation in the book was limits on car length, which was a regulation that was removed. She assumes that the natural competence of capitalists can only shine through if regulation is completely eliminated. That regulation of the industry prevents competence. But I don't think it's a matter of all regulation being bad. And I think it's a matter of having the right regulation with adequate enforcement. These things require competent people to make decisions. In the end competence isn't a matter of being a capitalist or of deregulating or of being utterly selfish about everything. It's entirely a result of being honest and reflective and trying to seek solutions to the problems people face. So she completely misses the mark. And here's an example of how removing regulations causes exactly the kinds of problems she decries in the book--peoples' lives being ruined by totally preventable rail brought on by incompetence and lack of resources. In fact the selfishness of the management and capitalist class in this case has lead directly to the accident. So clearly selfishness is not a virtue for the people in Palestine Ohio.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  Some people underestimate the lengths to which people will go to satisfy their greed. Sloth drives productivity improvements and greed drives capitalism. Fortunately, we only have to regulate down greed for capitalism to work...
- altairprime 4y ago
  Rand was right that the looters will wield regulation as a tool for looting, but she was wrong that deregulation would prevent that. Modern looters are able to exploit both regulation and deregulation for personal profit at the expense of others, and her ideology doesn’t offer useful guidance for that scenario.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    Rand is often quoted by the looters, in fact.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- phailhaus 4y ago
  A system that crosses its fingers and hopes "people will do the right thing" will always fail. These systems are games that will be played. If you can make more money by making one of these dangerous moves, someone will do it. And if there aren't laws against it, someone will always do it even if the established players won't. (not to say laws perfectly prevent all crime, but the rate is much higher without them) Just look at crypto, speedrunning the history of finance and rediscovering all the fraud you can commit when there are no regulations, and at massive scales affecting millions of people. Just because established banks learned their lessons hasn't meant new players would, so a world without regulation will continuously experience these tragedies.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    Thats a very culturally specific issue. If you have a low-trust culture you're absolutely correct. If you have a different kind of culture, such as in Japan, thats incorrect. Finance is a great example sector in your favor because it is so heavily internationalized(therefore basically no one feels patriotic/nationalistic about their work) and greedy. National industries like freight would be much more likely to embrace cultural features of their country.
    - booleandilemma 4y ago
      Eh I don't know. People are people and when pressed they're going to respond the same way. Look at Germany and the Volkswagen emissions scandal that happened a few years ago. German engineering excellence, yeah right. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
      - corbulo 4y ago
        I think that scenario is actually the opposite of the train regulatory environment. Cars have been really overregulated for years(how many major car brands are new in the last 50 years?). I've worked on post-2000 cars; it's not far fetched to me to believe that emission standards became unrealistic. The whole industry was in on that scandal. Whats unusual to me looking back now is how much the press cared about that vs. east palestine/train regs.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Hmm, the problem is that the feedback loop is not tight. I wonder if there is some property of markets which someone has written about which expresses this. It's a classic TornadoGuard problem https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
- pstuart 4y ago
  There's a saying that regulations are written in blood. While not always true, it's clear that they come about for good reason.
- notch898a 4y ago
  Regulations in this case are just a way to deal with the bad system we have for holding people accountable for externalities. I would focus on fixing that rather than a highly complex and bureaucratic regulatory regime for every industry. It should be made unprofitable to toxic wasteland an entire city.

The part where federal bureaucrats ordered a train to unsafely transit a tunnel and caused a massive explosion?

throwway120385 4y ago

Her whole deal in that book was that regulations are bad and that they are used as a cudgel by established players. Here we have an example of what happens when regulations are rolled back -- the profit motive takes over, eliminates safety measures, and eventually creates superfund sites. One of Rand's examples of a bad regulation in the book was limits on car length, which was a regulation that was removed. She assumes that the natural competence of capitalists can only shine through if regulation is completely eliminated. That regulation of the industry prevents competence. But I don't think it's a matter of all regulation being bad. And I think it's a matter of having the right regulation with adequate enforcement. These things require competent people to make decisions. In the end competence isn't a matter of being a capitalist or of deregulating or of being utterly selfish about everything. It's entirely a result of being honest and reflective and trying to seek solutions to the problems people face. So she completely misses the mark. And here's an example of how removing regulations causes exactly the kinds of problems she decries in the book--peoples' lives being ruined by totally preventable rail brought on by incompetence and lack of resources. In fact the selfishness of the management and capitalist class in this case has lead directly to the accident. So clearly selfishness is not a virtue for the people in Palestine Ohio.

readthenotes1 4y ago
Some people underestimate the lengths to which people will go to satisfy their greed. Sloth drives productivity improvements and greed drives capitalism. Fortunately, we only have to regulate down greed for capitalism to work...
altairprime 4y ago
Rand was right that the looters will wield regulation as a tool for looting, but she was wrong that deregulation would prevent that. Modern looters are able to exploit both regulation and deregulation for personal profit at the expense of others, and her ideology doesn’t offer useful guidance for that scenario.
- RajT88 4y ago
  Rand is often quoted by the looters, in fact.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
phailhaus 4y ago
A system that crosses its fingers and hopes "people will do the right thing" will always fail. These systems are games that will be played. If you can make more money by making one of these dangerous moves, someone will do it. And if there aren't laws against it, someone will always do it even if the established players won't. (not to say laws perfectly prevent all crime, but the rate is much higher without them) Just look at crypto, speedrunning the history of finance and rediscovering all the fraud you can commit when there are no regulations, and at massive scales affecting millions of people. Just because established banks learned their lessons hasn't meant new players would, so a world without regulation will continuously experience these tragedies.
- corbulo 4y ago
  Thats a very culturally specific issue. If you have a low-trust culture you're absolutely correct. If you have a different kind of culture, such as in Japan, thats incorrect. Finance is a great example sector in your favor because it is so heavily internationalized(therefore basically no one feels patriotic/nationalistic about their work) and greedy. National industries like freight would be much more likely to embrace cultural features of their country.
  - booleandilemma 4y ago
    Eh I don't know. People are people and when pressed they're going to respond the same way. Look at Germany and the Volkswagen emissions scandal that happened a few years ago. German engineering excellence, yeah right. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
    - corbulo 4y ago
      I think that scenario is actually the opposite of the train regulatory environment. Cars have been really overregulated for years(how many major car brands are new in the last 50 years?). I've worked on post-2000 cars; it's not far fetched to me to believe that emission standards became unrealistic. The whole industry was in on that scandal. Whats unusual to me looking back now is how much the press cared about that vs. east palestine/train regs.
renewiltord 4y ago
Hmm, the problem is that the feedback loop is not tight. I wonder if there is some property of markets which someone has written about which expresses this. It's a classic TornadoGuard problem https://xkcd.com/937/ https://xkcd.com/937/
pstuart 4y ago
There's a saying that regulations are written in blood. While not always true, it's clear that they come about for good reason.
notch898a 4y ago
Regulations in this case are just a way to deal with the bad system we have for holding people accountable for externalities. I would focus on fixing that rather than a highly complex and bureaucratic regulatory regime for every industry. It should be made unprofitable to toxic wasteland an entire city.