Biology gives us an important insight into the
concept of deregulation. Take the human
and the amoeba for example. The amoeba
is a relatively simple one-celled organism.
It has no eyes or ears; it cannot walk nor does it have a multipart
digestive structure. The amoeba has no
brain. The human, on the other hand, is
enormously complex. Humans have eyes and
ears and a highly evolved brain. Humans
walk and talk, and they have an intricate digestive system. They also have a cardiovascular system, an
endocrine system, respiratory system, reproductive system, skeletal system,
muscular system, nervous system, lymphatic system and a urinary system. Anyone who has ever studied biology will tell
you that a human, when compared to an amoeba, is nearly infinitely more
complex.
But in order to keep an organism as complex as a human
running properly it must have millions of regulatory functions constantly working. To do otherwise will lead to chaos. Without stopgap and counter measures; without
feedback mechanisms; without biochemical and cellular oversight; without
multiple supervisory formats the human would collapse. Just imagine waking up without the regulatory
systems responsible for vision, balance, proprioception, cognition and cardiac
stimulation? If all of a sudden these
systems were deleted (in other words human bio-physiology was deregulated) upon
awakening you would either have an epileptic-type seizure, an intense episode
of vertigo, an inability to stand or all three at the same time.
You see, the more complicated a system the more need
there is to regulate it. Otherwise, like
the suddenly deregulated human, the system begins falling apart. But let me give you another example to help
make my point. Let’s now talk about cancer. Just imagine going to your doctor and
discovering you have cancer. You ask the
doctor what he suggests. But to your
surprise the doctor says, “We shouldn’t do anything.”
You look on aghast and say, “Wait a second. Shouldn’t I take some sort of medicine to
control it?” But your doctor says, “You
mean to tell me you want to regulate it?
That’s nuts. We need less
regulation, not more! Cancer left alone
will grow and develop! The immune system
will go into overdrive. And you’ll burn
so much fuel you’ll hardly gain a pound.
In fact, you’ll lose weight!”
But what does cancer ultimately do to its host? If left unregulated then in the end cancer kills
you. If you think of the human body as a
society or government then you might look at cancer as an economic entity. It’s important to remember that biological
systems transcend animals and plants and extend all the way to societies and
governments and even economic constructs.
And like the human body or any multifaceted biological system these
social milieus will implode if unregulated.
To think otherwise is perhaps naïve.
We understand implicitly that a rapacious organism like cancer must be
regulated, indeed controlled, but yet we often fail to realize that economic
systems likewise must be regulated lest they, like cancer, kill their
host? If you could miniaturize yourself
and live within close proximity to a cancer you might find it indulges in its
own propaganda to confuse the body into allowing it to persist unregulated. Indeed we see the same phenomena occurring around
us as special interests (no less nefarious than cancer) try to convince us that
we should deregulate complex social systems—even as we have proof that when
these systems are deregulated they, like cancer, cause severe destruction. That is the great incongruity presented by
those who want more “growth and development” but at the same time “more
deregulation.” As I hope my biological
examples show the two cannot coexist.
The more complex a system, the more regulations it must have. Otherwise, like the deregulated human waking
up in the morning or the cancer left to its own devices, the society
experiences its own epileptic seizure and ultimately the host dies.
