Regulation, the Constitution, and the Economy: The Regulatory Road to Serfdom

Regulation, The Constitution, and the Economy demonstrates the constitutionally degraded and inherently dictatorial character of regulation, its ineffectiveness in curing social ills, and its use as a tool of special interests seeking personal gain in the form of money or power. Regulation became prominent in the late medieval mercantile rent seeking societies, but was little used in the United States until after the Civil War. The author demonstrates the nature of regulation as antithetical to constitutional forms of law, and an antidemocratic franchising of legitimate legislative authority to unelected persons. He provides a history of industry regulation using transportation and public utilities that belies the public interest justification for such regulation and makes its rent-seeking origins clear. The history of social regulation proves less clear, but shows the public harmed more than helped by it, as exhibited through its enormous negative effect on productivity growth and economic activity.