I ran into my 10-year-old neighbor in the grocery store the other day. He had just finished the last of his 12-hour shifts at the textile mill.
He had just been paid, ($6 after taxes), and had stopped by to pick up a few items, including apples rendered perfectly spotless through the liberal use of DDT. We lit our cigarettes right there in the produce section to catch up on things.
He said he was eager to see if the cancer-curing, cough-suppressing gout medicine he had ordered would, as advertised, rescue his grandpa from those ailments. He also asked me if I had heard about another neighbor, who, being unrestrained, had been thrown through the windshield in a collision with a truck he never saw because of the thick cloud of pollution originating from the cars and trucks all across town.
He said his mom had hoped to vote in the recent election but couldn’t because her polling place (the county courthouse) didn’t have a handicap ramp.
The details in this story may seem absurd, yet at one point children worked long hours for little pay. Products claimed to cure everything under the sun. Safety equipment like seatbelts were nowhere to be found. There were no laws to reduce auto emissions. There were no requirements for handicap-accessible facilities. In each case, industries predicted the regulation would ruin business and tank the economy.
People are naturally predisposed to be suspicious of regulations. Nobody likes to be told what to do or be mired in red tape and bureaucracy. This is especially true for business owners for whom new rules can be costly. Certainly, no politician ever ran for office on a “more regulation” platform, but deregulation is a mantra embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet, in many cases, what is perceived to be good for business is bad for the general public.
A business doesn’t innovate because it’s feeling charitable; it innovates when it’s pushed. When the government mandates safer, cleaner processes, industry doesn’t collapse; it simply finds a more efficient way to operate.
We are told that the free market (considered synonymous with deregulation among some people) is the ultimate arbiter of quality, but the health care industry proves that without guardrails, freedom is just another word for ruin.
We currently live in a system where medical debt accounts for two-thirds of U.S. bankruptcies. Every year, 530,000 Americans file for bankruptcy simply because they can’t afford the freedom of an unregulated medical bill. This isn’t a policy failure; it is a design feature of a system that prioritizes quarterly profits over the survival of its customers. When politicians campaign on deregulation, they aren’t promising to lower your premiums; they are advocating for a structure where you are one bad diagnosis away from losing your home, your savings and your security.
Public health and a healthy economy aren’t mutually exclusive – unless you believe that a bankrupt citizenry is good for business.
We should be wary of what deregulation actually means in practice. In the context of Mississippi education, it has become a Trojan Horse.
For years, the rallying cry was “Parents’ Rights” and “School Choice,” but we have learned this is often code for the slow dismantling of public assets. By diverting tax dollars away from public schools – which are legally and morally obligated to serve every child, including those with special needs or those living in poverty – and funneling them into private schools that have no such duty, we aren’t creating liberty. We are crippling the education system that an overwhelming majority of parents depend on.
Today, as the rapid pace of technology points to a future we don’t understand, it is important the public’s health and welfare are not neglected as business moves to make a profit from what is new. That’s why things like AI data centers in populated places warrant closer scrutiny. These centers are the modern equivalent of an extractive industry. If the state doesn’t insist on respect for homeowners, fair taxation, long-term commitment, and energy responsibility, we aren’t building a future. We are being used as a temporary resource.
If I had to make a choice between regulation and deregulation, I would take regulation in most cases.
So the next time you hear a politician campaigning on deregulation, it might serve you well to consider whose interests he is really advocating for. It’s rarely ours.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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