Slow Boring: Multiverse of Mailbag
John from FL: What is the best way to fight against regulatory capture across the US? I’m thinking of regulations and exclusionary hurdles which largely serve to protect incumbency. Covers a variety of markets like car dealerships, realtors, hairdressers and all sorts of professions where licensure isn’t being used to protect the public but to protect existing players.
Are there non-profits where contributions could make a difference? Or crusading politicians who could use some help?
Governors Jared Polis (D-CO) and Doug Ducey (R-AZ) are, as far as I know, the two standouts here. If you’re interested in this topic, I would recommend following Shoshana Weissmann on Twitter. The Niskanen Center has a whole “captured economy” program that is largely about this, so if you know anyone with the capacity to give them large sums of money, I would recommend that for sure. Since the car dealership angle directly impacts Telsa, maybe everyone should tweet about it and tag Elon Musk and try to get him to do more posting and advocacy since that would drive a ton of media attention.
More broadly, I always encourage everyone to remember that there is more to life than high-profile, high-polarized, super-ideological politics. Write to your state legislators and tell them you care about this stuff. Some of them might listen.
