I'm kicking myself that I didn't see this earlier, but I was just sitting and thinking about lobbyists lobbying for controls, and thought about the incentives of "good controllers" and "bad controllers". "Bad controllers" would be firms that are just trying to shut out competitors and cartelize the market. They lobby senators in order to do so. "Good controllers" would be the well-intentioned busybodies. Note that I didn't say "good controls", I just mean that the controls were paved with good intentions. Even if the controllers are angels, you still have the calculation problem that is at the core of central planning.
But given how large industry is and how much large firms have to profit, and given how small the nonprofit sector is, it's seems obvious that most "regulation" will be crafted in order to cartelize the market.
Furthermore, big business has a narrower focus: they want specific controls imposed. The activist groups have a more fluffy "protect the environment" or "keep out dangerous materials" view. For example when general motors lobbied to require cars to have catalytic converters. The Japanese cars didn't have catalytic converters, but met emission standards by just having more efficient engines, they didn't need catalytic converters, but GM wanted to specifically require cars to have catalytic converters because they knew that the Japanese companies would have to refit all of their cars.
Furthermore, big business is interested in the bottom line, while activists and other "good controllers" are prone to just satisfying their egos whereas lobbyists aren't interested in being known as a caring and wonderful person, in fact they would be happest to not be known at all.
And lastly, the "good" controllers can be convinced to support controls that are just meant to cartelize the market.
So there is this certain type of statist that paints itself as a cynical, hard-nosed realist.
And yet they believe the state can keep society regular because the people with good intentions will not only win out over the people with bad intentions, but that their good intentions will accurately calculate the demands of society and this is to be done, at least in part, "above the market".
Where did the cynicism go? Where did the realism go? No, as soon as you talk about the state these realists, these skeptics completely shut down and block out reasoning that is kindergarten-obvious.
Unfortunately these "hard-nosed realists", these Budweiser National Socialists, or BNSs for short, have a bunch of empiricism to fall back on. I'll link to a debunking of the meatpacking myth and the robber baron myth.
Of Meat and Myth:
http://www.mackinac.org/...
Myth of the Robber Barons:
http://fee.org/...
Note: I am the originator of this content, and it is not copyrighted.