Technology

regulatory capture

This isn't a problem with capitalism, it's a problem with governments. If we eliminate government entirely (e.g. anarcho-capitcapitalism), there are no regulations, thus no regulatory capture. There are other problems, and that's where governments should come into play, but they should be as removed from the market as possible to limit the profitability of lobbying.

For example, I'm not happy with the ACA and how it mandates certain minimum coverage, because that encourages companies to meet the bare minimum and profit by hiding as many exclusions as they think they can get away with deep in the agreement. That's certainly not the intent, but that's what happens, especially since corporations can lobby to soften language so they can find/create loopholes.

I would prefer one of the following instead:

• public option - private insurance would need to demonstrate value in excess of what Medicare provides in order to compete, which keeps them (more) honest
• hand out cash for customers to pick their own insurance, and merely require contracts to be easily understandable (and the government would take an active role is prosecuting bad agreements)

But no, we got the middleground, which results in a lot of lobbying and cronyism. IMO, governments should instead place themselves in the role of prosecution, letting the courts (and therefore the public) decide on the interpretation of the law through court precedent. Having government agencies set and enforce rules directly opens the door far too widely for cronyism.