In this edition, we cede the entire space to Marcus Ryu, chief executive of Guidewire Software with these excerpts from his New York Times op-ed: https://nyti.ms/2OjPHF5
“… tech elites are on board with a central objective of the Trump administration: an aggressive rollback of regulation across virtually every domain of federal oversight, including the environment, public health, consumer protection and net neutrality.
“As both a chief executive and a citizen, I believe the ideology behind this agenda gambles with the foundation of our prosperity…
“Like most executives, I sometimes chafe under the rules that govern a public company. But I have also come to recognize the limits of corporate self-governance and to appreciate the regulatory environment we have …
” … many of us have become so accustomed to despising the people we elect that we have forgotten that rational and apolitical regulation is essential to the capitalist engine to function.
“Regulations correct for ‘externalities’, where market forces alone would lead to the destruction of un-priced shared goods, such as clean water and clean air. Anti-predatory lending laws and disclosure rules for mortgages protect consumers from exploitation …
“These rules often arise as correctives to a disaster — the Great Depression, Three Mile Island, thalidomide. the global financial crisis. We should heed those lessons, not burn them down in a fit of Jacobin rage or wave them off as wishful thinking about self-regulation…
“When a democracy fails to protect people from these depredations, authoritarianism grows in appeal. And the capitalists among us should realize we have the most to lose in the long run: an economic system in which we are rewarded for maximizing our growth and profits.”