Re:On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't
by throwaway0a5e on Monday March 01, 2021 @02:03PM
(#26306703)
All sorts of things are like this.
The older I get the more I realize that you can't regulate the things wealthy societies do into existence. If everyone can't afford building code things collapse when you mandate that. If the economy is underpinned by bad working conditions or child labor things collapse when you regulate them. If people can't afford to eat at restaurants that follow some new code then they simply won't and those restaurants will fold. If you restrict the supply of some trade through licensing in the name of quality then you just get amateurs doing the lower dollar work for cash. A society has to be able to afford to do the things it mandates. People have to get wealthy enough to reliably afford "right" before you can legislate away "wrong".
The older I get the more I realize that you can't regulate the things wealthy societies do into existence. If everyone can't afford building code things collapse when you mandate that. If the economy is underpinned by bad working conditions or child labor things collapse when you regulate them. If people can't afford to eat at restaurants that follow some new code then they simply won't and those restaurants will fold. If you restrict the supply of some trade through licensing in the name of quality then you just get amateurs doing the lower dollar work for cash. A society has to be able to afford to do the things it mandates. People have to get wealthy enough to reliably afford "right" before you can legislate away "wrong".