Laissez-faire critics of government regulation have a response to cases such as this: If companies are endangering the public, there will be an outcry against them and their profits will be hit.

That’s as good a place to start as any to make the point that this inquiry demands a far more granular approach. SOME things are so visibly contrary to the public interest that publicity about them is enough to curtail them. And SOME things aren’t.

Politics is how some of our “market” economics plays out. Instead of boycotting bad actors, we legislate against them. Below the level of bad behavior at which mass boycotts change practices lies a class of conduct that we would each agree to boycott if our peers were boycotting, too. That’s essentially what government regulation is about. I will buy from a company that uses sweatshop labor, because so many of my neighbors are doing so that the cost, quality, and selection of other sourcing is prohibitive. But if we can agree in Congress that no one can buy sweatshop goods, I’m all for that outcome, because it elicits the supply I want, even if at a higher price.

Regulation is not an alternative to the market; it is the market; it’s how we “boycott” actors who engage in certain practices. It’s not some faceless bureaucrat that’s legislating. It’s We, the People, in Congress assembled.

To the extent that good regulations are not being adopted, the fault is ours for electing pawns and bozos. Congress has a 20% approval rating precisely because it is not doing what the market wants done. That makes it look like “market” economics has failed. But the market is doing what the market has always done. The failure is in the government’s transmission of market sentiment. After all, just as one can say that the market will punish bad actors, one can say that the electorate will punish pols who don’t reflect market sentiment.

I am reminded of an old joke. The punchline is “She’s not my reward; I’m her punishment.” We are not Trump’s reward. He is our punishment. WE elected New Gingrich and Mitch McConnell, and they have have destroyed Congress as a functioning legislature. As Federalists, i.e., states rights’ idiots, they are happy to have crippled the National Congress. But that’s where regulation happens under the Commerce Clause, and so, it’s not happening. They have thrown out the collective bargaining baby with the central planning bathwater. Maybe they don’t know this, and maybe they don’t care. But they have done it.

Point is, before we start tearing down “market economics” as a concept, maybe we should try restoring our government to health.