I believe people will screw each other over no matter what system you use. In a regulated economy people will screw other people by lobbying for regulations that protect their industry from competition.

Just like people will always abuse the system. People hae learned to do this, especially in the US. Your solution is simply to make it easier for companies to screw people. Why don't people boycott companies TODAY when they do this? If they did, then I might support your argument. The fact is that there is no evidence for people doing this.

>People do that today as well. With a mandatory safety standard, you can probably raise quality in the short term, but there is a trade-off, in increasing costs and reducing innovation.

If they do they are thrown in jail. Now usually the people really responsible are not because of a failing legal system. That problem is not solved by just letting them do it and get away scot free.

Regardings costs. Peopme are so amazingly bad at making decisions as a group. It is mathematically provable that if everyone acts in their own best interest everyone can easily be worse off as a result. This assumes everyone is a rational actor, and we know that people are not even close to that which makes it even worse.

>The greatest force for improved quality and increased affordability is, in the long run, competition between entities free to innovate without the artificial constraint of mandates on their procedures.

>A great many industries were kickstarted by government subsidy.
Another reason to oppose regulations against the free market is that regulations are subject to being shaped by special interests, who may deliberately push for them to be onerous to stamp out smaller competitors. Many small farmers blame food production regulations for the demise of their sector and the growing dominance of industrial farming.

This is indeed a problem, but your solution is essentially to just let companies do what they would otherwise be have to lobby for. Most lobbying cases are for laxed regulation or to allow companies to get away with monopolistic practices.

>Not categorically. I want a strong authority maintaining security and the right to freely contract, but I want that authority to not use its power to infringe upon those same contracting rights

We can argue the word "freely" then. I don't believe people freely enter contractual relationships when one side has a clear power advantage and actively tries to manipulate you.

And by the way, it's not a fallacy to appeal to moderation when overdosing kills you.

Since you believe that everyone should make their own decisons and we should just live with that. Perhaps you should consider that the system we have to day was born out of people making their decison to not have 100% libertarianism because they were smart enough. By your logic this would be all the reason you would ever need.

At some point you just have to realise that the requirements necessary for the system you want to outperform what we have are opposite to how people actually behave in real life. I hope you are young, then it is fine to be a bit idealistic. We all realise why things don't work sooner or later.