Lack of regulation in capitalism leads to the ability to roll up huge gains in wealth for those at the top of the food chain, and also leads to huge economic disasters on a national scale such as we are experiencing now in the US.
The italicized portion of the previous sentence is precisely why business, the rich, the media and the plutocratic political parties in the US (originally the Republican Party, but now both parties), support the deregulation of the capitalist system in the US and all over the world.
The verdict is in on the deregulation of capitalism that has been the rage all over the world for the past 30 years. Almost everywhere it has been tried, it has caused massive discrepancies in wealth distribution. The top 20% of the income earners everywhere on Earth have benefited, and the bottom 80% have lost out.
That's why Latin America has been voting in leaders who have campaigned on platforms that can be roughly translated as, "The Hell with neoliberalism". Far from being Leftists or Communists, most of the new Latin American Left is simply objecting to the observable failure of 20-30 years of neoliberalism in Latin America and trying to fashion some sort of social democratic alternative.
Even honest proponents of neoliberalism in the US media like Fareed Zakaria have admitted that neoliberalism in Latin America has failed. The usual lie has been, "It hasn't had enough time to work yet."
This is a lie.
Neoliberalism in Latin America is working exactly as planned.
It was designed to enrich the top 20% and impoverish just about everyone else. Everyone on Earth, neoliberalism has devastated the public sector, wages, working conditions, schools, health care, etc. It has probably killed millions of people. In fact, there is good evidence that it is killing millions of people all over the world every single year.
Read about the history of the US economy in the late 1800's as it lurched from one panic to another, with wild run-ups in wealth for the rich in between.
Unregulated capitalism is like a cocaine addict with a trust fund. He can have a real wild blast as long as the money lasts, get high as a damned kite and soar to the skies. There's almost no limit to how high he can get. When the crash comes, he's going to be pounded physically and psychologically, and his trust will be drained. Freemarketeers argue that it's worth it for the fun of the run.
Regulated capitalism is like a middle-aged man who drinks a couple of glasses of wine a night. He's not able to get rip-roaring drunk like he did in his youth, nor is he able to drink his troubles away, but the hangovers are nonexistent, and he's not committing slow suicide anymore either.
Regulation is like a fog layer on the coast in a Mediterranean climate. It takes the extreme heat and cold out of a climate and leaves it at a moderate, some would say boring, middle.
During the Roaring 20's, people forget 80% of the US population actually lost money. It was only "roaring" for the top 20%. Nevertheless, most Americans think of this as a time unlimited prosperity. As we can see, not only is America governed and reported on exclusively by the Rich, but even our very history is the History of the Rich.

