> There's (ostensibly) a general current in American politics towards non-interference in business
At what point in time has our economy been more regulated than it is today? I can't even think of a particular industry that has trended towards less government involvement. I suppose you could make the case that modern Republicans are relatively focused on "non-interference", but that's certainly not new (Reagan) and it's certainly not a general American political trend.
Really curious what you mean by this, because the way I'm reading this there is no basis in reality.
>At what point in time has our economy been more regulated than it is today? I can't even think of a particular industry that has trended towards less government involvement.
In a specific and literal 'number of regulations, period' way, you're right. But in a more general sense involving the FTC, prior to 1978 the economy was significantly more regulated.
So there may be more restrictions on the product to qualify as natural or organic, for example, but there are less restrictions on the ability of the company that makes the product to engage in non-competitive behavior. Banking is a good example - there are more restrictions and requirements for disclosure, but before the 90's, banks were not allowed to have branches in multiple states. Additionally, now you have a number of tech companies behaving like banks but acting in a significantly less regulated way that wasn't possible twenty-five years ago. From a 'whole economy' perspective, the required reserve balance reductions in the 90's resulted in less ability for the federal govt to control the economy without major shocks.
The government has less control over the economy today than it has had in decades, and since the late 70's a failure of antitrust enforcement and changes in financial rules have resulted in market concentration in every major market to a degree that they have all become oligopolies.
No worries. I think you're just taking the wrong sense of current.
Non-interference in business is the prevailing current in the US, at the federal level, since its founding. Interference needs to be constitutionally justified, and (historically) needs to not be better applied by more local jurisdictions.
This is why the past shows has comparitively lax regulation for long.
You're right that this is a more pressed issue lately and that we can see a local relative current towards regulation tempers that prevailing one, but in net its actually still relatively non-interfering compared to what you see in peer nations.
Leaning on the metaphor: The prevailing Atlantic current mostly goes north up the US coast, but you can still find local currents in all directions amidst that prevailing flow.
Advertising, if you consider it as a ratio of impact versus regulation. Advertising has a thousand fold impact on people today but not a thousand fold increase in regulation.
At what point in time has our economy been more regulated than it is today? I can't even think of a particular industry that has trended towards less government involvement. I suppose you could make the case that modern Republicans are relatively focused on "non-interference", but that's certainly not new (Reagan) and it's certainly not a general American political trend.
Really curious what you mean by this, because the way I'm reading this there is no basis in reality.