Just making an observation, not a value judgement. A consequence of that free market is that people are naturally going to be (and should be) more skeptical.
Oh yes - and that shines a different light on the regulatory State! When I was younger and stupider
, one of the mysteries I wrestled with was: why did the financial industry become so complaisant with being regulated to the extent to which it has? Chalk my confusion up to naïveté: it's pretty obvious that,
ceteris paribus, any industry would prefer less regulation (aimed at them) to more. Those stories about clever industry-employed securities lawyers engaging in a kind of arms race with the regulators by finding loopholes in the still-very-voluminous regs, of course, fed my naïveté.
The answer didn't click in until well after I read up on the history of the American stock market. In the 1960s, there was a big push to call listed stocks "The People's Capitalism." Long after I read that, the answer clicked.
A well-regulated industry is much easier to market as trustworthy. It's a powerful inducement for otherwise-skeptical people to drop their skepticism. "You see something fishy? Just call the regulators! If they see a crook, they'll crack down. Now as for us..."
Evidently I was "overtheoried"; I needed an intervention from Captain Obvious. As John Ralson Saul put it a long time ago, most-to-all businesspeople want one thing from the government: a stable market for their goods.
If accepting regulation means more stabilization through disarming healthy skepticism, they'll accept it. The
ceteris really ain't
paribus.
