Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, they didn't originate with regulatory capture. But the actions to prevent Tesla from selling direct now, today, have definitely been the result of regulatory capture. The original interventions created a kind of local businessman, who knew he owed his existence to these local regulations. And now that these laws have been made unnecessary due to the availability of both information and exposure -- and incontrov…
> regulatory capture There doesn't seem to be much disagreement about the facts, just the definition of "regulatory capture". The idea which "regulatory capture" describes is when regulations fail to do what they are intended to do, when instead of restricting they empower. But the regulations have not "failed", they are still restricting manufacturers and empowering dealers, so this isn't "regulatory capture", just…
> Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating
Enforcing barriers to entry is a huge aspect of regulatory capture. A regulation that creates $1 million/year of compliance costs nominally "restricts" all players (and certainly doesn't "empower" them), but that money is often a pittance for large companies while effectively squashing new entrants, greatly to the large companies' benefit.