After WW2 we were in a high-trust, low-barrier society state across the Western world [1]. You could leave your door unlocked and no one would come and rob you, your children could roam free as they pleased, you could start what could become a multi-billion dollar enterprise in your garage and neither the IRS nor "HOA enforcers" would raise an eyebrow or keep annoying you with audits, you could afford a home with a garage in the first place even as a blue collar worker. And that worked out pretty well in retrospective - we had a literally booming economy from both large giants as well as small startups, people had lots of children as they actually had money, employees in companies had actual freedom to decide things even on lower levels where the actual work happened, employees entered their company at 16-18 and left at 65-ish, and the focus of upper management was to keep the company healthy.
Around / after the fall of the USSR, things took a serious nosedive all at once. A lot of solid blue-collar employment got moved off overseas, poverty shot through the roof (and with it, related crimes like burglaries and robberies), IRS shifted from enforcing the tax code fairly to focusing on small businesses and people (partially because the uber rich and international megacorps now employed sizable amounts of lawyers and tax specialists that created schemes that were way too complex for the IRS to dig through), companies more and more focused on quarterly results, short-term benefits and financial plays instead of sustainability (we're seeing right now with Boeing how a once proud company has fallen to the MBA beancounters), employers completely forgot about responsibility for their workers and hired-and-fired them in response to said quarterly results, the resulting loss of trust led to absurd micromanaging from above, and everyone in general went for "side hustles" and squeezing out some tiny amounts of money for themselves by tricking others because there was no other way.
And the combination of all of that is IMHO what created the low-trust society state we are in: we cannot trust our neighbour, our employer, a random hobo on the streets, the government, no one any more.
[1] Yes, I know, distrust against non-Whites, LGBT, ... was a (massive) thing but that's not my point here. And yes, I'm painting a rose-colored picture, and realities could vastly differ.
But I dont think thats enough to explain this. Something relevant, a lot of the houses that were allowed to be built in the 40s would be illegal now. I could probably build a decently sized small house with a garage with a cousin for 20-30k. But it would be illegal to live in. Even in the countryside... and eventually the taxman would find me, which forces us to not build something to use, but build something that functions as an investment.
Maybe other counties have the resources to create bureaucracies. But her in the Midwest there's not the budget for creating elaborate rules, much less paying inspectors.
Any of those and youve captured most of the working population of the US.
Sure, some folks have a hard time choosing where to live, I get it. If we're honest, most folks just live by default wherever. They don't want to change.
And you vastly overestimate the cost of living outside major cities. It's a tiny fraction of what you might imagine.
I think I agree, if we recast it as 'inertia', it captures most of the working population of the US.
Racism definitely plays a part in here ("white flight"), but it's by far not the dominant issue.
> Something relevant, a lot of the houses that were allowed to be built in the 40s would be illegal now.
Indeed, but their designs are illegal nowadays for good reasons, mostly related to fire code or structural integrity. Way too many people have literally died in their sleep in unsafe homes. Statista only goes back to 1977 for residential fire deaths, but even that shows a serious reduction of cases over the decades [1].
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/376703/us-civilian-fire-...
You cant have safety and freedom.
I do think building codes are valid in cities. Outside of cities it should be a free for all, but its not.
However, building codes now are insanely overreaching. I have lived in japan for a few years and found many of the features in buildings here would never be allowed in the US. Minimum stairwell widths, door sizes, building sizes, parking lot requirements, etc. Modern Japanese buildings are probably 100 times safer but would fail american building code.
Point is if the argument is we need regulation for safety it needs to actually be for safety, and minimally.
That may be when the effect was felt, but the seeds were planted much earlier than this - at least 20 years.
Pretty sure we're already there.
Therein lies the crux, I think. Perhaps lowering the consumer trust barriers boosts the economy, perhaps it's the road to hell.
There might be regulation that is too much, also in the field of electrical engineering (and I am a certified EE), but most of it (especially regarding toasters) is pretty useful if you want to sleep sound.
This is not about making a toaster. I could make one using a long piece of wire and a transformer. It is about making a toaster that has a certain standard and does not kill people, burn down houses and/or interferes with radio traffic. All kind of things that would suck.
If you can't clear that bar as a manufacturer, you shouldn't be one. You could still build things for yourself – but if you want to sell things to others they should be able to assume you are not out there to kill them without deeply researching your company, aquiring a degree in mechanical and electrical engineering, buying your product and disassembling it. And I say that as a person that would be able to do that, unlike most.
If you want to build a toaster not so much. You could just slap a CE sign on and probably get away with selling it via online platforms. That however means you guarantee for the compliance.
You also need a manual in the language of the nation where you want to sell it and a model/serial number and a risk analysis. That is not nothing, but the motivated individual could learn all of that in a few years, if they are somewhat intelligent.
Sure depending on what area you are operating in the catch might be even knowing what all those norms are and the fact that we sometimes have to pay to even read the norms is a friggin crime. But it is probably a good thing that there are some requirements one needs to fulfill to e.g. becoming a commercial airplane manufacturer.
Regulatory capture (big corps demanding stricter regulation to root out their smaller competition) is a thing. But not with the toaster industry.
If I sell you a toaster that I built in my own little workshop (USA! USA!), then: Wouldn't you prefer that there be at least some third-party testing to ensure that it is safe enough to not burn your house down? And if you don't care about your own safety (because you know how to Do Your Own Research), then: Wouldn't your kids and neighbors prefer this testing?
Maybe if you trust me (because you like the cut of my jib or something) then you'll believe me when I say that I had my engineering-type buddy go over the design and he said it was OK.
But caveat emptor: You should not trust me. I, the seller in a hypothetical truly-free market, am here to give you as little as I can get away with for as many dollars as I can take you for.
That's what UL helps with, in this context: They're an impartial private company that tests products to ensure that they meet safety standards (most of which they designed themselves, but that's just a positive example of free enterprise at work). They do charge [plenty of] money for this service, but they've got expenses to cover (and profit to make!) just as you or I do.
But there is no federal law or national regulation requiring US consumers to use only UL-listed toasters. That's not a thing, and it has never been a thing. Such a requirement may be a thing in some more-local jurisdictions, and/or also an important part of some insurance policies, but the overarching regulatory environment that you seem to be railing against in the context of toasters simply does not exist.
They killed hundreds building the Brooklyn Bridge, the hoover dam. So many horror stories of things like that xray shield sizer or lawn darts, or laundry mangles, etc.
That world wasn't better for anyone but the robber barrons.
Your risks can impact other people. If your toaster catches fire, it could kill people in the apartment next to yours. If the brakes on your car fail, you could kill anyone who is in your path. These other people didn't choose to take on these risks.
When was this time?
False peace of mind harms people because it makes people assume that all products on the shelves are safe by default which isn't always the case and drives harmful behaviors on a massive scale. Take the adoption of Glyphosate for example. Had people not been reassured by the government that it was 100% safe, many people would not have used it. Consumers outsourcing trust to the government instead of the individuals who produce the goods is harmful because it creates an environment which gives untrustworthy people a competitive edge and a certain degree of protection from liability. It shifts some responsibility away from producers who understand the product best and towards government agencies whose interest is to help large private companies maintain market dominance.
It's a weird thing when people are convinced that the solution to snake oil salesmen and serial murderers are making those very things commonplace and perfectly legal.
There are times when corporations abuse regulations to add excessive burdens on their would-be competitors, but making sure your toasters don't electrocute you or burn your house down isn't one of those situations.
There are also times when our government and their regulations don't protect people as well as they should. That's a sign that we need more regulations and better enforcement/accountability, not an indication that we should give up trying to hold anyone to any kind of standards in the first place.
Honestly, we want the responsibility to be on government agencies because when they fail to protect our interests we at least have the option to vote them out and replace them with people who will do their job. You don't get to vote out the CEO or shareholders who decide to become serial killers so that they can make a little extra money on top of the millions/billions they already make in profits. Why would you want to limit your own power so that others can exploit you more easily? Companies have shown time and time again that they will knowingly poison you, kill you even, if they think it will make them more money. They'll spend tons of time and money trying to cover it up too. You'd rather trust them than your own elected representatives? Maybe you've been voting for the wrong people...
Apart from all of the other obvious things people have mentioned, what this hyperlibertarian perspective fails to take into account is externalities. I might have done my own toaster research, but did my neighbor? What happens when my neighbor doesn’t do his own toaster research properly and ends up burning down both of our apartments? Insurance can’t cover everything that will be destroyed.
> I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research.
Trust me, you really don’t.
I wish we could go back to a time when everyone takes their own risks and has to do their own research. Manufacturers could optionally pay some standards company to add some safety label to it to help boost customer confidence but it should not be compulsory. We're all going to die eventually and this obsession with safety is unhealthy and probably kills more people than it protects (e.g. due to the mental distress they cause and false peace of mind which dumbs down consumers and makes them feel like they don't need to do their own research... Not to mention the social harms caused by the passive 'trust the experts' mindset).