Neoliberal fears of regulatory coercion outweighed cost-benefit arguments in shaping US regulatory policy

Evidence

A fascinating study by University of California law professor Jodi Short empirically illustrates the role of neoliberal ideology as one important explanation for Google’s ambitions and successful defense of lawless territory. Short analyzed 1,400 law review articles on the subject of regulation, all published between 1980 and 2005. As the influence of Hayek and Friedman predicts, the dominant theme of this literature was “the coercive nature of administrative government” and the systematic conflation of industry regulation with “tyranny” and “authoritarianism.” According to this worldview, all regulation is burdensome, and bureaucracy must be repudiated as a form of human domination. Short observes that during the sample decades these fears were even more influential in shaping regulatory approaches than rational arguments about cost and efficiency, and she identifies two points of origin for these anxieties. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 345

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader surveillance-capitalism framework and to Milgrom’s work on institutions — here the state’s regulatory role is being ideologically dismantled, the inverse of institution-building. — connects to: Anti-New Deal business propaganda and Cold War totalitarianism fears jointly reshaped US regulatory policy — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 346; Judicial review’s deterrent fear may explain American labor’s non-militancy — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3214
• SEED: Could spawn an essay on how ideology, not rational analysis, shaped the legal habitat that let surveillance capitalism operate lawlessly.

Broader Connections

• Anti-New Deal business propaganda and Cold War totalitarianism fears jointly reshaped US regulatory policy #corroborates (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 346