Regulating business

What is the government's rational for regulating businesses? Why do governments seek to do this or do they? As a capitalist society I'd hope that the government is minimal in business and that people can prosper without interference. Are monopolies dangerous to have in a society?

Look up the horrible working conditions in the industrial revolution era...

In 1842 a Parliamentary Committee which reported on the mines found that many workers were working in the most appalling conditions. Not only did they work very long hours, but they were also hired at very young ages. Children as young as five were used as ‘trappers’ to open and close underground doors in the mine to let the ‘hurriers’, who pulled the loaded wagons, get through. These children worked in the dark because their families were often too poor to be able to afford candles. They were in the dark for up to twelve hours each day and often had rats scurrying all over them. If they fell asleep they were beaten by the miners.

The commission also found that children were employed as coal ‘hurriers’, pulling carts or sledges filled with coal over long distances and through very small tunnels. Girls as young as thirteen were often used fir this work. The chain around their waist caused damage to their pelvic bones, distorting them and making them smaller. This often proved fatal in later life when many of them died in childbirth. country.

www.saburchill.com...
www.schoolshistory.org.uk...

As a capitalist society I'd hope that the government is minimal in business and that people can prosper without interference

Capitalists do whatever to concentrate more wealth into their hands, including killing their own workers.. So no, an unchecked capitalist society would be like a hell hole 3rd world country.

RobFox
What is the government's rational for regulating businesses? Why do governments seek to do this or do they? As a capitalist society I'd hope that the government is minimal in business and that people can prosper without interference. Are monopolies dangerous to have in a society?

The issue here is cronyism. It is through regulation that government establishes and defends monopolies by discouraging competition.

We do not have true capitalism, while the word is a disparaging term invented by Karl Mark (or some other communist), we have embraced it in defiance. It may be time to let the term go and allow it to be associated with mercantilism and corporatism.

What we want is free markets and that is how we should express it. We do not have free markets for products and services as a result of government interference.

reply to post by RobFox


Regulations are laws, that prevent corporate crime.

Corporate entities should have to follow laws the same as everyone else.

Don't let the scam artists fool you .

The whole free market con has actually allowed corporations to eliminate competition, not regulations.

Insurance companies, are also corporations, and they do more to eliminate small business than any government laws.

Thanks guys for your thoughts, I'm learning a lot.