Jonathan Adler @ Volokh:
The question is not whether we would have “more efficient and more effective regulation” but whether we would have regulations that more closely follow the value preferences of the American people. Existing regulatory decisions are not made by “scientists and engineers” who have regulatory authority due to their independent expertise, but by executive and independent agencies that are headed by political appointees who are granted regulatory authority by Congress. Their regulatory decisions are informed by scientific and technical information, but the ultimate regulatory choices are based on normative judgments – whether it is worth imposing X amount of costs for Y benefits, whether it is fair to impose particular costs, risks or burdens on particular segments of the population, whether environmental gains in one area are worth safety or environmental losses in another, and so on. These are legislative policy judgments for which legislators should be held accountable.
Regulation is always a tradeoff...never a scientistic true-false question. Worth remembering.
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What then does one do when their point of view is not represented in Congress? What does one do when the regulatory process is co-opted and used for the purpose of parasitic looting by the elites, or even an organized 51% of the population? Libya?
rsf,
That's the public choice critique...
1. regulations are a political question.
2. Democratic politics is a special-interest, pro-government -fest.
3. Regulators are effectively always captured.
Ergo...we anarchist/libertarian types are necessarily excluded...by the nature of the process.
What do you do? I think Patri and Paul (romer) have it right. Look for exit strategies.
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