Of late, many libertarians have been understandably concerned about temporary losses of freedom to congregate with others, due to the pandemic. However, this is no time to neglect the additional burdens we face due to excess regulatory environments, for over regulation could also affect society's ability to fully recover in the long term.
Only recall, how limits to personal freedom extend well beyond the social and the political. When essential product is defined so as to incur unnecessary costs, many of us lose the chance to make the best use of our time priorities. In other words, some aspects of market design include hidden intentions which in turn reduce our level of economic freedom. Indeed, some of today's regulatory burdens could limit our ability to live meaningful lives, if they are not addressed soon enough to help us meet our financial obligations to others in the near term.
As jobs continue to be lost and societies struggle to maintain their financial obligations, we need a response which takes both short and long term structural issues into account. Ultimately, the best way to reduce near future financial obligations, is to set about reducing the costs of the structural burdens they were based upon. Production reform would make doing so a distinct possibility. As things currently stand, structural burdens now create excessive financial obligations for public and private interests alike, and pandemic circumstance exacerbates this reality.
We know that many problems which seemingly emerged overnight, nevertheless aren't going away any time soon. Importantly, a longer term approach is needed - one which also expands ownership potential and economic participation by simplifying a wide range of supply side structural issues. That said, how to determine what kinds of regulations stand in the way? Clearly, some forms of regulations are benign and often beneficial, especially when standardization procedures also encourage exponential growth in supply side output. Commodification which results in broad economic access and reasonably well met demand, is an example of positive procedural standardization.
However, many procedural regulations aren't intended to bolster supply side capacity, especially when exponential growth in output is not an option due to natural scarcities of time and place. Too many non tradable sector regulations impose limits on (already scarce) time and space linked product, instead. Some public and private institutions intentionally hide what supply side limits are actually intended to accomplish on their behalf. These forms of intentional market design often disallow basic product such as housing or time based service options. Hence producers and consumers alike end up with excessive time commitments when no other choices are available - scarce time which otherwise might have been put to more productive ends.
Even though hidden intentions in market design aren't the most obvious feature of existing inequalities, they tend to result in more debilitating circumstance for lower income levels than other forms of inequality. Consider for example, how neither basic income (as generally promoted) or Social Security income is truly capable of addressing today's non tradable sector requirements for basic needs. Yet if basic income were eventually enacted alongside Social Security, millions more individuals would have little else in the way of resources to meet their obligations. It's time to bring more of the hidden intentions for market design out into the open, so that markets can become simpler and more accessible for producers and consumers alike.
Fortunately, it is quite feasible to create more flexible patterns for personal ownership and economic participation. It is also possible to reclaim the value of our time, so we can pursue more of what makes life meaningful and productive. Only yesterday, some were arguing how society had become too complacent for productive change to materialize. Yet we no longer have the luxury of remaining complacent. Perhaps we can respond to crisis by turning it to a better future for all concerned. Why not reorient intentional market design toward more benign forms, so that all can benefit from greater economic freedom.
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