The Limits of Laissez Faire Capitalism

But there’s a pattern here to which we should pay heed, and it involves power. Too often, regulations are discussed in the abstract as a “burden” on companies that expend substantial sums to resist them.

Only after disasters such as this one do we remember that regulations exist for a reason, that their enforcement can, literally, be a matter of life and death. We will eventually learn what went wrong at Upper Big Branch and whether the safety violations were part of the problem. But then what will we do?

via E.J. Dionne Jr. – An old, sad story at a West Virginia mine.

The market signal that saves lives often costs them.