Western civilisation is an idea worth defending—and reapplying

• Restrictive zoning ordinances make the cost of living in high-growth cities prohibitive. This hurts millions of people and shuts tens of millions of others out of the most dynamic areas of our country.

• The healthcare system is like a cartel that limits new medical schools, doctors, and innovative forms of competition. Cronyism, ludicrous tort law, local monopolies by hospitals, and a dense mesh of rules and restrictions create a “cost disease” that wastes $1 trillion a year.

• The prison system, fueled in part by a misguided “war on drugs,” incarcerates millions of people—disproportionately minorities—with horrific recidivism rates, ruining lives and communities.

• Education, a national experiment in centralised control and funding, is unequal, mediocre and leaves students unprepared for a complex economy.

• A maze of over a million federal regulatory commands, with thousands of new “guidance documents” released every year, and a comparably vast net of state-level regulation, make entrepreneurship expensive and difficult. This regulatory sand-trap favours the wealthy and powerful (who can afford armies of lawyers) over small businesses.

https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/08/03/western-civilisation-is-an-idea-worth-defending-and-reapplying?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/