...with appliance design:

Not so long ago, you could count on most washers to get your clothes very clean. Not anymore. Our latest tests found huge performance differences among machines. Some left our stain-soaked swatches nearly as dirty as they were before washing. For best results, you’ll have to spend $900 or more.

It reminds me of the 1.6 gallon mandate for toilet tanks, which often results in more water usage, because a single flush doesn't always do the job.

Even worse, I've found these new toilets tend to clog up, requiring a plunging (and additional flushes). Maddening.

If government wants to meddle, let them do it by fiddling with price signals via broad pigouvian taxes and subsidies, not micromanagement of technologies. They don't have the detailed knowledge to do the latter well.

When The Government Gets Involved...with appliance design:

Like...a house full of electronics that don't interfere with each other because of the FCC? The CPSC ensuring your toaster won't poison, electrocute, or blow your face off short of massive stupidity? Whatever the relative measures, we live in a modern civilization infused with countless systems and architectures either maintained or facilitated by government regulation or statutory mandate, and in the vast majority of cases the benefits are obvious by common sense.

Like...a house full of electronics that don't interfere with each other because of the FCC? The CPSC ensuring your toaster won't poison, electrocute, or blow your face off short of massive stupidity? Whatever the relative measures, we live in a modern civilization infused with countless systems and architectures either maintained or facilitated by government regulation or statutory mandate, and in the vast majority of cases the benefits are obvious by common sense.

Brian, this is less useful than you imply. If the FCC didn't exist then there would be private equivalents. Recall that people won't buy items that interfere with important tools like phones, TVs, or computers. Standards would be set just to get the markets to exist. There are plenty of examples in the internet world of nongovernment standards created by necessity.

Even consumer safety has a private counterpart. Electronic equipment for example is usually vetted by Underwriters Laboratory, a not-for-profit, despite the presence of the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Comission). Incidentally, the UL alone probably duplicates the effective parts of the CPSC and the FCC. Once a standard is established, it can certify equipment to meet that standard.

And your points ignore that while some government regulation is indeed useful, other parts are not. Establishing useless or counterproductive regulations is not a valid government function. While I don't think the pure Libertarian no government viewpoint is ideal, I do prefer it over the equally simplistic assumption that government is generically good just because it does some things competently. So far that viewpoint has been responsible for a power-hungry government which I find more threatening in the long term than the relative anarchy of a libertarian society.

I was brought up during a time when the government didn't licence, mandate or rule on every object that was in the home or on the road. We got along quite nicely without any more danger than now of un-government inspected consumer products by buying toasters certified by people like the Underwriters laboratory. If there were problems, they were usually handled by things like lawsuits and consumer demand. This notion that without the state checking the inside of our toilet tanks we'd be dead is the typical response of the control fetishists and closet fascists.

Karl: If the FCC didn't exist then there would be private equivalents.

The default effects might be similar, but hardly equivalent. Totally unregulated consumer markets are like unposted minefields, creating effective barriers by virtue of repeated catastrophe, whereas competent regulation is more like a wall. However, I don't believe even market defaults would apply: People would indeed buy electronics that interfere, and only a minority would find it inconvenient enough to exchange them or do product research before buying. There would not be sufficient pressure on companies to coordinate, and the result would be significant external costs.

There are plenty of examples in the internet world of nongovernment standards created by necessity.

Apples and orangutans. The internet is an architecture, not a set of independent products.

Electronic equipment for example is usually vetted by Underwriters Laboratory, a not-for-profit, despite the presence of the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Comission).

Private standards are largely thanks to, not in spite of, the CPSC. Knowing in advance what is expected, industry can then collaborate on how best to approach meeting the requirements.

Establishing useless or counterproductive regulations is not a valid government function.

Useless regulation grows out of useful regulation, in the way that parasites evolve to exploit a successful organism. It's an intrinsic cost of the public sector, in the same way that externalities are an intrinsic cost of markets. Each approach is simply a means to an end, and neither must be regarded as inherently superior or mutually exclusive.

While I don't think the pure Libertarian no government viewpoint is ideal, I do prefer it over the equally simplistic assumption that government is generically good just because it does some things competently.

I agree that bureaucracy should not be a default, but the "minimal government" standard is deeply flawed.

So far that viewpoint has been responsible for a power-hungry government which I find more threatening in the long term than the relative anarchy of a libertarian society.

The society most vulnerable to oppression is that without organized ways of preventing it. Libertarian/anarchic freedom is by default, like a tribal people who operate by custom and respect, but such systems have always proven far easier to overwhelm than the explicit freedom of law-based polities. The Eurasian steppe peoples, "free" in the Libertarian sense, gave birth to the most oppressive and slavish civilizations in history, while the explicit political states--bureaucracy and all--created everything that we are today.

A free state is comprised of its people, they are not its subjects, nor are they merely its clients as in some social-welfare philosophies. That is why I find talk of "small government" so absurd--libertarians are saying they don't trust themselves to make reasonable decisions as citizens of a republic, and would rather only be responsible for themselves. There's nothing inherently wrong with that preference, but it certainly isn't in line with the Founding principles they believe it to reflect.

Correction: The ninth block of text from the top should be in italics as a quote from Karl.

Collectivist think: Studies written by vested interest group Z conclude that "WE" can theoretically (insert warm and fuzzy result here) by mandating rule X. Rule X's generally makes everyone's life a little bit more tedious, expensive, difficult, less free and more joyless. Repeat process endlessly, ignor culmulative effects to the fabric of life. Feel vicariously self righteous because you're "making a difference". Impose your childishly simple (but brillant-you thought of it!) models on millions and expect them to react just like you. Get infuriated when they don't.

Individualist think: If X is changed there's a Y percent chance (usually very very small) that I'll be effected negatively. Guess I'll decide if I want to expend effort and funds to take that risk or not.

And here's my own appliance story. I had a room air conditioner some years back so that I could sleep hot nights while not having to cool the whole house. It was quiet and didn't use much energy. After 13 years, it needed to be replaced. The new air conditioner was designed with the Clinton government rules for same. To achieve the necessary efficiency ratings, the cooling fins have to be very close together. This also makes said air conditioner very noisy and likely to freeze up. This, subsequently makes it much more difficult to sleep with it on. It also refuses to turn on it's compressor if the room temperature is less than 65 degrees even though it feels much hotter because of the humidity. In which cases I have to get up and turn on the house air conditioner, use more energy than I ever did with the old air conditioner.

I keep my morale up during these hot periods by thinking of the government slogan in "Brazil",
"We're all in this together". Which should make Brian happy.

Brian Swiderski:
Totally unregulated consumer markets are like unposted minefields, creating effective barriers by virtue of repeated catastrophe, whereas competent regulation is more like a wall.

Are there any examples of "repeated catastrophes" that were caused by "totally unregulated consumer markets"?

If such examples exist, have there been any cases where such catastrophes were eliminated by governmental regulation?

"Are there any examples of "repeated catastrophes" that were caused by "totally unregulated consumer markets"?"

Not quite the right example, but the approach the USA took to Cell Phone networks has left the US about 5 years behind the rest of the world in mobile phone network and handset technology.

Are there any examples of "repeated catastrophes" that were caused by "totally unregulated consumer markets"?

The state of pharmaceuticals prior to regulation would be a good example. A constant stream of useless snake oils and toxic concoctions regularly killed, harmed, or diverted people from obtaining real treatment, and the result was that medication in general had little credibility. There were consumer groups, publications, and scientific organizations that evaluated medicines, but it never came close to what the FDA achieved.

Similar examples could be found with automobiles, waste disposal, labor standards, and many other consumer products and business practices. Absent regulation, the consequences of a product disaster are limited to that individual product, regardless of larger issues that caused it: E.g., a car that explodes because of a certain engine component will leave the market, but other cars with that engine component will not. Consumers do not generally do the kind of research needed to identify such issues, and private organizations don't have the resources to widely publicize them except in the most egregious and broadly applicable cases. The result is a continuum of persistent disaster with high personal costs for individual consumers, but spread over too many different products and services to cause market changes.

If such examples exist, have there been any cases where such catastrophes were eliminated by governmental regulation?

Countless. The number of life-saving components and procedures mandated in electrical equipment, automobiles, children's toys, crib design, aircraft, food processing machinery, etc etc is too extensive to document outside a GAO report, and that's not including mandates that simply improve consumer value. From what I've seen, the useless bureaucracy and counterproductive regulation are cherry-picked exceptions.

The state of pharmaceuticals prior to regulation would be a good example. A constant stream of useless snake oils and toxic concoctions regularly killed, harmed, or diverted people from obtaining real treatment, and the result was that medication in general had little credibility.

Great, so instead we get people killed and continually sickened because overcautious bureaucrats keep them off the market.

Apparently, Mr. Swiderski is unfamiliar with the concept of seeing the unseen. But then, he's notorious as an economic simpleton, at least at this web site.

The government gets involved in enforcing standards because it's necessary; because the general public is not qualified to judge most of the objects in modern life.

One can probably see whether a chair is any good or not. Whether one can tell a bad set of brakes from a good one is not quite as obvious.

On the issue of drug safety, I agree with Brian. Relying for safety enforcement on an organisation paid for mostly by the people it's supposed to be regulating is a rather clear conflict of interest.