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Can’t we just ask the regulator?: Difference between revisions
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The world of modern finance was unexplored: broken-fenced frontiers everywhere you looked, and you were free to wander the hinterland scalping unwitting customers — “ripping customers’ faces off” was the vogue term, come to think of it — unrestrained by official hand. | The world of modern finance was unexplored: broken-fenced frontiers everywhere you looked, and you were free to wander the hinterland scalping unwitting customers — “ripping customers’ faces off” was the vogue term, come to think of it — unrestrained by official hand. | ||
This, contemporary [[thought leader]]<nowiki/>s believed, was best for everyone, in the long run. “Government is not the solution to our problem; government ''is'' the problem,” as Ronald Reagan once famously put it, and as Javier Milei {{Plainlink|https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2024/sessions/special-address-by-javier-milei-president-of-argentina/|did again — without attribution — at the WEF in 2024}}. | This, contemporary [[thought leader]]<nowiki/>s believed, was best for everyone, in the long run. “Government is not the solution to our problem; government ''is'' the problem,” as Ronald Reagan once famously put it, and as Javier Milei {{Plainlink|https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2024/sessions/special-address-by-javier-milei-president-of-argentina/|did again — without attribution — at the WEF in 2024}}. | ||
In recent times — President Milei’s remarks notwithstanding — this carefree impulse has fallen on stony ground. Of course, it has: to survive its auto-destruction, any new programme must self-organise: that founding spirit of optimistic anarchy will resolve to well-meant gentle governance which in time will calcify into impenetrable rules, etiquettes and ways of operating [[calculated]] to maintain the emergent power structure around the programme. This happened to the nineteen-fifties, to rock ’n’ roll, to the internet, it’s happening to crypto right now and will happen to AI at some point in the future — as long as Skynet doesn’t happen first. | In recent times — President Milei’s remarks notwithstanding — this carefree impulse has fallen on stony ground. Of course, it has: to survive its auto-destruction, any new programme must self-organise: that founding spirit of optimistic anarchy will resolve to well-meant gentle governance which in time will calcify into impenetrable rules, etiquettes and ways of operating [[calculated]] to maintain the emergent power structure around the programme. This happened to the nineteen-fifties, to rock ’n’ roll, to the internet, it’s happening to crypto right now and will happen to AI at some point in the future — as long as Skynet doesn’t happen first. | ||
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We are all technocrats now: a freedom that once seemed hopeful and elegant now seems barbaric in its simplicity. We have become inured to the idea that, because it can be, our every financial impulse should be minutely monitored, reported, and ''regulated''. | We are all technocrats now: a freedom that once seemed hopeful and elegant now seems barbaric in its simplicity. We have become inured to the idea that, because it can be, our every financial impulse should be minutely monitored, reported, and ''regulated''. | ||
===The theory=== | ===The theory=== | ||
And that is fine. Being a pragmatist, it is not the [[Jolly Contrarian|JC]]’s motive to take sides in the cosmic debate: rather, to say, however heavily we frame our rules, good governance and our well-rehearsed imperative of juridical [[certainty]] requires them to be as plain, clear and actionable as they can be. The world is [[Certainty|uncertain]] and [[Complexity|non-linear]] enough: the guardrails we erect to protect each other from it should not be. We should not be left in doubt about what we can and cannot do. We should not be held hostage for the consequence of | And that is fine. Being a pragmatist, it is not the [[Jolly Contrarian|JC]]’s motive to take sides in the cosmic debate: rather, to say, however heavily we frame our rules, good governance and our well-rehearsed imperative of juridical [[certainty]] requires them to be as plain, clear and actionable as they can be. The world is [[Certainty|uncertain]] and [[Complexity|non-linear]] enough: the guardrails we erect to protect each other from it should not be. We should not be left in doubt about what we can and cannot do. | ||
We should not be held hostage for the consequence of action in a case of genuine doubt. | |||
Besides, wilfully leaving ''doubt'' in regulation creates an opportunity for doubt alleviators to extract ''rent''. Three-quarters of the UK’s £32bn legal services industry services the corporate sector.<ref>[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pwc.co.uk%2Findustries%2Fassets%2Fuk-legal-services-market-report-2022.pdf PWC UK Legal Services Market Report 2022]</ref> | Besides, wilfully leaving ''doubt'' in regulation creates an opportunity for doubt alleviators to extract ''rent''. Three-quarters of the UK’s £32bn legal services industry services the corporate sector.<ref>[https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pwc.co.uk%2Findustries%2Fassets%2Fuk-legal-services-market-report-2022.pdf PWC UK Legal Services Market Report 2022]</ref> | ||