WI: No Regulation

[Peter Parker]

Move this to ASB or Chat if needed

What if the United States never passed any regulation on industry? What would the world look like without minimum wage or environmental laws or safety regulations or the FDA. What about the economy, when banks and monopolies have no regulations to govern them.

 

[Transparent Blue]

Like this, but more.

Smog in Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1909 that killed 1000 people

Child laborers in 19th century.

"Medicine" in 1860.

 

[sciscisciortino]

You'd have to totally nerf class struggle and workers' consciousness. I don't know how you're gonna do that in an industrial America. And honestly plenty of regulations would benefit industry and financial moguls otherwise: they can get killed by inadequate infrastructure and pollution, they'll figure out the state is useful in shoring up firms and depressions eventually, etc.

But assuming you did, yeah, it'd be fairly hideous.

 

[Peter Parker]

Bump for the sake of bumps

 

[ChazMo]

We'd probably all be dead by now.

 

[Blue Max]

I think you'd get the utopian story that everyone believes in--people with incredible wealth, the opportunity to make nigh unlimited profits, no interference from the government, or even better, a government beholden to them.

The Rich are Richer, and much Richer. Probably in the equivalent of trillions of dollars. Like in Latin America, they are rich enough that they no longer fear social regulations any more than they fear economic regulations--the mistaken belief of human rights has been abandoned in favor of universal right to exercise highly expensive privileges.

Of course, the Rich can't do it alone. They need a healthy bureaucracy of people to promote their image, to manage their businesses, and to disappear people who ask too many questions. There's a lot of dirty work to be done, but then again, its a dirty world. Fortunately, most people are uneducated laborers unable to grasp the advanced concepts that offer solutions. Indeed, many of them are children--but that's OK, because the concept of modern childhood never emerges either. Children work, that's how its always been, that's how it will stay.

It's a difficult job keeping the United States this way. Many millions of people have starved, many tens of thousands of Communist Radicals who demand outrageous things like bread or work weeks of less than 60 hours are turned into boogeymen using the power of the media, which is under no obligation to do anything other than what its masters do. Fortunately, the 14th amendment allows for Penal slavery. As much as a quarter of the US population lives and dies in Prison labor camps.

Washington DC is a marvelous place, an oasis from the terrible pollution that has extincted the Bald Eagle, the Grizzly Bear, and the Buffalo. Here, senators and congressmen meet with their constituents at the Chamber of Commerce to discuss future policies. It's off limits to those who can't afford the highly expensive access pass, and a deal with business interests to keep the Capitol clean ensures that it is a remarkable place.

Most cities, however, are much more like New York. When essentials like Power, Water, Housing, Food, Clothing are monopolized, a good many people have to do without. Part of the city lacks power, as the people there are too poor to pay for it. Still, New York is a great hub of cheap labor and manufacturing to sell goods to wealthier Europe, Japan and whatever parts of the world have been able to avoid the disasterous Capitalism that has emerged in the United States.

New York is more polluted, not entirely clear of disease outbreaks, and only the poverty of its citizens mitigates crime. There is no drugs crisis because people can't afford them; social issues look a lot different when the question asked by leadership is "how can I make as much money as possible" as opposed to "what is the right thing to do?"

The USA's rise to Great Power Status has been aborted. Without a middle class, without education and specialization, and ruled by a cadre of trillionaires with no desire for any other goal than to someday become a Quadrillionaire, the USA finds its energy sapped by prolonged internal tension. The transformation into a penal-slavery secret police Utopia means that people produce mostly unskilled labor at whatever rate people are willing to pay.

Karl Marx had looked at the United States as the nation most needing a socialist revolution or at least some attempt to mitigate capital power. Nearly a century and a half later, the United States has evolved into a highly abusive one-party state that has averted socialism at a price so all-encompassing that only an alternate historian could even understand what has been lost. A Standard of life that a Briton or a Frenchman has, not just for the chosen few, but for everyone. A true end to slavery as opposed to simply its renaming and reapplication to dissidents. Retirement might not be economically forced suicide, where those no longer able to work, unable to make any savings, and unable to even find food or shelter seek "God's embrace".

There are winners and losers. For the few tens of thousands of winners, you get all kinds of freedom and excessive, nearly untaxed profit. For everyone else, there's always sneaking into Mexico. But it's freedom; the freedom to sell sex to creepy men for $5; the freedom to be hungry and homeless with zero reason to seek help from anyone--but if that's not okay, you can be put on a chain gang and worked until your body is broken.

I think the concept of human rights will still emerge outside of the United States, and that in the far distant future, perhaps around 2100, the Rest of the World is really tired of a country that has no problem using children for sexual gratification and is the last reservoir of diseases like Polio, Smallpox and Measles. The Human Rights card will be played against a country that never developed a strong armed forces, never built WMD, and borders on social collapse. The USA will be taken down, and something better can be born.

 

[Van555]

I think you'd get the utopian story that everyone believes in--people with incredible wealth, the opportunity to make nigh unlimited profits, no interference from the government, or even better, a government beholden to them.

The Rich are Richer, and much Richer. Probably in the equivalent of trillions of dollars. Like in Latin America, they are rich enough that they no longer fear social regulations any more than they fear economic regulations--the mistaken belief of human rights has been abandoned in favor of universal right to exercise highly expensive privileges.

Of course, the Rich can't do it alone. They need a healthy bureaucracy of people to promote their image, to manage their businesses, and to disappear people who ask too many questions. There's a lot of dirty work to be done, but then again, its a dirty world. Fortunately, most people are uneducated laborers unable to grasp the advanced concepts that offer solutions. Indeed, many of them are children--but that's OK, because the concept of modern childhood never emerges either. Children work, that's how its always been, that's how it will stay.

It's a difficult job keeping the United States this way. Many millions of people have starved, many tens of thousands of Communist Radicals who demand outrageous things like bread or work weeks of less than 60 hours are turned into boogeymen using the power of the media, which is under no obligation to do anything other than what its masters do. Fortunately, the 14th amendment allows for Penal slavery. As much as a quarter of the US population lives and dies in Prison labor camps.

Washington DC is a marvelous place, an oasis from the terrible pollution that has extincted the Bald Eagle, the Grizzly Bear, and the Buffalo. Here, senators and congressmen meet with their constituents at the Chamber of Commerce to discuss future policies. It's off limits to those who can't afford the highly expensive access pass, and a deal with business interests to keep the Capitol clean ensures that it is a remarkable place.

Most cities, however, are much more like New York. When essentials like Power, Water, Housing, Food, Clothing are monopolized, a good many people have to do without. Part of the city lacks power, as the people there are too poor to pay for it. Still, New York is a great hub of cheap labor and manufacturing to sell goods to wealthier Europe, Japan and whatever parts of the world have been able to avoid the disasterous Capitalism that has emerged in the United States.

New York is more polluted, not entirely clear of disease outbreaks, and only the poverty of its citizens mitigates crime. There is no drugs crisis because people can't afford them; social issues look a lot different when the question asked by leadership is "how can I make as much money as possible" as opposed to "what is the right thing to do?"

The USA's rise to Great Power Status has been aborted. Without a middle class, without education and specialization, and ruled by a cadre of trillionaires with no desire for any other goal than to someday become a Quadrillionaire, the USA finds its energy sapped by prolonged internal tension. The transformation into a penal-slavery secret police Utopia means that people produce mostly unskilled labor at whatever rate people are willing to pay.

Karl Marx had looked at the United States as the nation most needing a socialist revolution or at least some attempt to mitigate capital power. Nearly a century and a half later, the United States has evolved into a highly abusive one-party state that has averted socialism at a price so all-encompassing that only an alternate historian could even understand what has been lost. A Standard of life that a Briton or a Frenchman has, not just for the chosen few, but for everyone. A true end to slavery as opposed to simply its renaming and reapplication to dissidents. Retirement might not be economically forced suicide, where those no longer able to work, unable to make any savings, and unable to even find food or shelter seek "God's embrace".

There are winners and losers. For the few tens of thousands of winners, you get all kinds of freedom and excessive, nearly untaxed profit. For everyone else, there's always sneaking into Mexico. But it's freedom; the freedom to sell sex to creepy men for $5; the freedom to be hungry and homeless with zero reason to seek help from anyone--but if that's not okay, you can be put on a chain gang and worked until your body is broken.

I think the concept of human rights will still emerge outside of the United States, and that in the far distant future, perhaps around 2100, the Rest of the World is really tired of a country that has no problem using children for sexual gratification and is the last reservoir of diseases like Polio, Smallpox and Measles. The Human Rights card will be played against a country that never developed a strong armed forces, never built WMD, and borders on social collapse. The USA will be taken down, and something better can be born.

The Koch Brothers cry a single tear!

 

[Peter Parker]

I think you'd get the utopian story that everyone believes in--people with incredible wealth, the opportunity to make nigh unlimited profits, no interference from the government, or even better, a government beholden to them.

The Rich are Richer, and much Richer. Probably in the equivalent of trillions of dollars. Like in Latin America, they are rich enough that they no longer fear social regulations any more than they fear economic regulations--the mistaken belief of human rights has been abandoned in favor of universal right to exercise highly expensive privileges.

Of course, the Rich can't do it alone. They need a healthy bureaucracy of people to promote their image, to manage their businesses, and to disappear people who ask too many questions. There's a lot of dirty work to be done, but then again, its a dirty world. Fortunately, most people are uneducated laborers unable to grasp the advanced concepts that offer solutions. Indeed, many of them are children--but that's OK, because the concept of modern childhood never emerges either. Children work, that's how its always been, that's how it will stay.

It's a difficult job keeping the United States this way. Many millions of people have starved, many tens of thousands of Communist Radicals who demand outrageous things like bread or work weeks of less than 60 hours are turned into boogeymen using the power of the media, which is under no obligation to do anything other than what its masters do. Fortunately, the 14th amendment allows for Penal slavery. As much as a quarter of the US population lives and dies in Prison labor camps.

Washington DC is a marvelous place, an oasis from the terrible pollution that has extincted the Bald Eagle, the Grizzly Bear, and the Buffalo. Here, senators and congressmen meet with their constituents at the Chamber of Commerce to discuss future policies. It's off limits to those who can't afford the highly expensive access pass, and a deal with business interests to keep the Capitol clean ensures that it is a remarkable place.

Most cities, however, are much more like New York. When essentials like Power, Water, Housing, Food, Clothing are monopolized, a good many people have to do without. Part of the city lacks power, as the people there are too poor to pay for it. Still, New York is a great hub of cheap labor and manufacturing to sell goods to wealthier Europe, Japan and whatever parts of the world have been able to avoid the disasterous Capitalism that has emerged in the United States.

New York is more polluted, not entirely clear of disease outbreaks, and only the poverty of its citizens mitigates crime. There is no drugs crisis because people can't afford them; social issues look a lot different when the question asked by leadership is "how can I make as much money as possible" as opposed to "what is the right thing to do?"

The USA's rise to Great Power Status has been aborted. Without a middle class, without education and specialization, and ruled by a cadre of trillionaires with no desire for any other goal than to someday become a Quadrillionaire, the USA finds its energy sapped by prolonged internal tension. The transformation into a penal-slavery secret police Utopia means that people produce mostly unskilled labor at whatever rate people are willing to pay.

Karl Marx had looked at the United States as the nation most needing a socialist revolution or at least some attempt to mitigate capital power. Nearly a century and a half later, the United States has evolved into a highly abusive one-party state that has averted socialism at a price so all-encompassing that only an alternate historian could even understand what has been lost. A Standard of life that a Briton or a Frenchman has, not just for the chosen few, but for everyone. A true end to slavery as opposed to simply its renaming and reapplication to dissidents. Retirement might not be economically forced suicide, where those no longer able to work, unable to make any savings, and unable to even find food or shelter seek "God's embrace".

There are winners and losers. For the few tens of thousands of winners, you get all kinds of freedom and excessive, nearly untaxed profit. For everyone else, there's always sneaking into Mexico. But it's freedom; the freedom to sell sex to creepy men for $5; the freedom to be hungry and homeless with zero reason to seek help from anyone--but if that's not okay, you can be put on a chain gang and worked until your body is broken.

I think the concept of human rights will still emerge outside of the United States, and that in the far distant future, perhaps around 2100, the Rest of the World is really tired of a country that has no problem using children for sexual gratification and is the last reservoir of diseases like Polio, Smallpox and Measles. The Human Rights card will be played against a country that never developed a strong armed forces, never built WMD, and borders on social collapse. The USA will be taken down, and something better can be born.

Wow, when would the rest of world do something

 

[Blue Max]

Wow, when would the rest of world do something

The USA is physically large and screwing with it will not happen early.

Basically, what I see happening is the United States falls into a dystopic "extremism of property ownership" where the right to property has become so extreme that many millions of people have died and only totalitarian control over the media, the complete lack of education in most of the people, and and a willingness to do whatever dark deed is required to keep the boss in charge keeps this running.

The United States also didn't become this way overnight. As grim as this scenario is, all that's really changed is that the Gilded Age Corporations are no longer run by morally conflicted men like Rockefeller and Carnegie--men who are at some level concerned about the human cost of their actions but their business comes first--but instead men like Pinochet, who lack that concern entirely.

Going from a nation that launches mercenary attacks against unions to going full Orwell on them doesn't strike me as all that radical a change. And as sad as that scenario sounds, I don't think the world intervenes for a long time. The USA enslaved millions of kidnapping victims and their descendants and while people cared about it, it didn't lead to war.

I think if the mantle fell to them, the Socialist Movement would take up the banner of human rights. In this ATL, it is clearly obvious that unmitigated Liberalism is horrifying for most people. A lot of people who probably would have been "Liberals" without that horror story become "Humanitarian Socialists" or "Christian Socialists". The rise of a more moderate Soviet Union analog might happen in Germany, and the Human Socialist / Christian Socialists coalition and oppose radical right-wing Liberals.

That's right, in this ATL, the Soviet Union really is the good guys. And they also win over the world. It probably takes until 2100 for the World to decide to force the United States to accept that individuals who do not register for full citizenship (ie 98% of the Population) deserve to have human rights acknowledged.

But this is really out of line to the United States. If you think about social issues in terms of profit and loss, why end child labor? Children are replaceable, indeed, thanks to birth defects, child replacement is common and legal--the United States doesn't need people who can't contribute, and infanticide because of economic loss is a positive good. Killing grandpa after he can't work anymore is good too. And if someone is willing to pay for sex, whatever emotional pain that causes, it's worth it.

What sort of culture does this create? A stoic one. Mankind survived the dark ages; times where whole families shacked in a hut and hard labor ruled lives. In a lot of ways, the United States would resemble that a great deal--but this is unfair to feudal lords, who generally wanted to help their peasants, as opposed to simply profiting from them. Mankind didn't necessarily have better choices in those times, but its not like the Americans in this scenario do either.

The question, though, ignores the partial avoidance of this scenario in OTL. I think in real life, the Trillionaires club would be legitimately scared and appalled at the plight of the average American. To a point, they can play the "Us and Them" game to avoid connections, but they can't entirely avoid the culture they've created. They'll see the people at the bottom, scared by disease, skinny from too little food, and stoic about having done very humiliating things to eat another day. People who no longer hold funerals because selling organs for money is financial necessity, or whose marriage can be defeated with a $20 bill. And eventually they decide that their culture sucks.

They can try to make a deal amongst themselves, but deals aren't law. Besides, the American People are basically unable to use the legal system, as they can't read. The endless liberty and unlimited right to use property without infringement, a product of a refusal to regulate and a consequence of a power elite that proceeded to completely win the culture war and then Orwelled everyone into loving it, quietly dies.

But it breaks the scenario. So that executive, despite his misgivings, decides that the Arbeiterbund's demands to abolish narcotics production, child sex tourism and tax evasion shelters are a fundamental infringement of the "Free Market" and will not happen. He then flies in his private jet to Washington DC, an oasis of clear skies in a nation of smog, to denounce "unjust demands" that are carefully remanufactured into absurd demands for abolishing shoes and belt buckles by the media.

It's just another day in America.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

Keep in mind, the int'l community tends to just see most countries in agony and ignore them b/c the lessons learned since 1990 are it costs too much in lives, $$$, and focus to make a difference.

Burma, NK, Thailand, Honduras, Sudan/S Sudan/Congolese Civil War, Ukraine, and other scuffles get a little ink in the press, but not a lot of focus.

Barring some int'l neo-Victorian thinking of a UN that decides screw sovereignity, we're straightening %^&* out and putting the bodies and $$$ into making it so, but who decides that and is willing to do what JFK promised "pay any cost, face any foe, etc" to make things right?

Trouble with that theory is that anytime folks go into a free-fire zone, it never improves.
It sucks resources until the powers trying to impose themselves on it leave in disgust and exhaustion. It's too damned easy for the locals to frustrate occupying powers.

LSS, there's no int'l cavalry to save the US from itself.

Welcome to the mix of cyberpunk dystopia and catastrophic climate change that's going to profoundly transform the world order into a purgatory requiring humanity to be clever, cooperative, and determined to survive.

We as a species have survived heinous diebacks and climate crashes before.
We've also seen advanced societies implode (Easter Island, Mayan civilization, the Mississippi mound buliders, Minoans, and others) that couldn't adapt.

Whether we want it or not, the end of the 21st century is most likely going to be a heroic age of struggle against nature, against our own selfishness and stupidity and sloth, against despair. Who knows. We might get it sorted.

 

[sciscisciortino]

I can't really imagine the US turning into a Latin American-style kleptocracy without a late-18th century POD. If Thomas Jefferson had his way and Hamiltonian economics never went anywhere it could be an Anglo-Argentina, maybe. Maybe a creepy industrial-totalitarian technocracy for a period of time, but even that's probably not sustainable.

 

[Drunkrobot]

Keep in mind, the int'l community tends to just see most countries in agony and ignore them b/c the lessons learned since 1990 are it costs too much in lives, $$$, and focus to make a difference.

Burma, NK, Thailand, Honduras, Sudan/S Sudan/Congolese Civil War, Ukraine, and other scuffles get a little ink in the press, but not a lot of focus.

Barring some int'l neo-Victorian thinking of a UN that decides screw sovereignity, we're straightening %^&* out and putting the bodies and $$$ into making it so, but who decides that and is willing to do what JFK promised "pay any cost, face any foe, etc" to make things right?

Trouble with that theory is that anytime folks go into a free-fire zone, it never improves.
It sucks resources until the powers trying to impose themselves on it leave in disgust and exhaustion. It's too damned easy for the locals to frustrate occupying powers.

LSS, there's no int'l cavalry to save the US from itself.

I don't like to sound pig-headed but it won't take until 2100 until this barbaric state is destroyed. It'll take as long as the human race needs to build an atomic bomb and drop it on DC. All those Congressmen and Trillionaires are wiped out in one almighty blast, like scooping a tumor out of a body. The entire ruling class, having just been decimated, won't be able to keep control of the Proletariat. Outside powers would broadcast to the American People, 'You don't need to be slaves, you can be treated as human beings. You could have a home were noone can invade your privacy, a job were you are given what you are due, a job that is safe and secure. Your children can go to school, learn about the world, aspire to reach higher places than you ever thought possible. But if you want to have all that, you need to FIGHT!' The United States would be swallowed whole as foreign agents inspire flash mobs to bring chaos and drain the rulers and their tools of numbers. All the money in the world doesn't matter when four very strong, very angry men are pulling at each of your limbs to see which would would rip off first.

There's little the US upper class would be able to do against any support the other powers send to the 'rebels'. No educated middle class and total monopolies on almost all industries means no progress in technology and no drive to improve, meaning any war industry they control (assuming they can even get the factory workers to work) would be rather like a pig so fat that it can't walk, too big and too slow to actually do anything. What armed forces there are is unlikely to have any actual loyalty to the country, and what's stopping the foreign powers from offering them a higher salary than the US rulers?

Soon, it would simmer down into something almost tribal, as local communities celebrate earning their freedom and try to handle power themselves. The foreign powers, glad that the old regime choked on its own filth, would hopefully send aid workers to give the Americans some education of medicine, modern farming and basic government, the concept of voting, elected leaders and so on. The People might equate the old United States with the leaders who worked their parents and children to death to make a quick buck. In that case, the US might look like Germany, pre-Bismarck, hundreds, thousands of little countries that mostly keep to themselves.

Sorry if this all sounds like offal to you lot.

 

[superkuf]

Move this to ASB or Chat if needed

What if the United States never passed any regulation on industry? What would the world look like without minimum wage or environmental laws or safety regulations or the FDA. What about the economy, when banks and monopolies have no regulations to govern them.

If you with "the United States" also mean state and county level, så no public laws/regulations at all are taken - difficult, but my two cents:

* Unless a very strange POD the Americans would still be Americans, and prefere fresh air, healty kids etc. So when the standard of living raises by industrialization they will start working for less pollution, better work safety and higher pay. But since the political way are closed they will have to find other ways to influence. Legal procedings? Public awareness? Cooperation with churches? Naming and shaming? And in the end technical advantages make coal burning industries in city centers a thing of the past.

* If the goverment don't have the power to regulate industry the goverment don't have any power the industry want. IOTL everyone wants to lobby towards the goverment to get their wishes made into laws, to stop laws, to get financial subisdies etc - but if the goverment can't pass laws or subsidies no one would want to control the goverment.

* The Robber Baron Era have gotten a lot of undeserved bad history. Even during this fairly lawless time the pay raised, the prices fell and standards rose. Monopolies were very few, if any (although local monopolies could survive some decades) and didn't damage neither the market nor the customers in any relevant way. Standard Oil could act as a semi-monopoly since it was so damn effective and thereby could underbid almost anyone.

* Without any goverment as lender of last resort we will see a lot of bankrupcies á la Goldman Sachs. A lot of seemingly invincible companies will go under. The Fortune 500 list will see far more rotation than ITOL. So there will not be any eternal gigantic companies that rules the world.

* Both Prohibition and War on Drugs will be no-starters (and laws that discriminates on basis of race should also be non-existing), so crime would be far less common.

 

[sciscisciortino]

I'm not buying that history, the Panic of 1873 for example wiped out small producers more than anything (plenty of big ones, yeah, but not to the same extent) and they tend to always be the ones to get wrecked by consistent harsh business cycles. It's also the fertile ground that grew the Rockefeller-Carnegie-Morgan empires.

Businesses and lenders down south (and elsewhere) would just de facto discriminate without repercussion...which is what they did anyway. It would only change the complexion of Jim Crow and segregation slightly.