Most industries self-regulate and the public serves only to make a working service more costly by imposing external regulations. Even heavily regulated industries like air travel face very little regulation except where the product meets the consumer. It's hard to find good numbers on this.

Upton Sinclair is credited with motivating the creation of the FDA when he exposed appallingly filthy conditions in the food industry. This is a pretty good example, to me at least, that some amount of regulation in some cases is a great benefit to the public at large.


It is worth noting that while federal regulatory agencies have the power to create and enforce regulations, those regulations are not laws. It's a fine line. Rules and punishments (usually fines) issued by a regulatory committee do not face external review by other branches of government. A person or institution being punished has no right to representative counsel, or a trial by peers, or to appeal. Yet, the regulatory committees are backed by (are indeed a part of) the executive branch.