A More Unequal America
18th November 2013
Inequality grows hand-in-hand with the growth of the regulatory state. The proliferation of regulations increases economic inequality, since powerful people and politically connected companies know how to shape and manipulate the regulatory process to harm their rivals and enrich themselves at the expense of the public. As the Roman senator and historian Tacitus observed, ‘The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” Moreover, regulations disproportionately increase the cost of consumer staples that are a larger part of middle class people’s budgets than of rich people’s budgets.