deregulate

tr.v., -lat·ed, -lat·ing, -lates.
To free from regulation, especially to remove government regulations from: deregulate the airline industry.

deregulation de·reg'u·la'tion n.
deregulator de·reg'u·la'tor n.
deregulatory de·reg'u·la·to'ry (-lə-tôr'ē, -tōr'ē) adj.

Deregulation refers to efforts to reduce government involvement in the day-to-day activities of the private sector. The regulation of business began in the early twentieth century when progressive reformers passed legislation to monitor corporate behavior. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs enormously expanded the realm of government regulations, a trend that continued through the 1960s. By the end of the 1970s, however, the U.S. economy suffered high inflation and high unemployment and underemployment, a phenomenon known as Stagflation. Many observers blamed stagflation on government regulation, which critics claimed sapped the entrepreneurial energy of the private sector. To cure this problem, deregulators advocated a sweeping reduction in government rules—the idea being to turn businesses free to operate, letting the market do the regulating.

After the administration of President Jimmy Carter deregulated the airline industry in 1978, the federal regulatory apparatus setting rules for much of industry unraveled. The Reagan Administration accelerated deregulatory policies begun under Carter and implemented the most comprehensive rollback of government regulations in American history. Deregulation affected the nation's basic industries, including trucking, railroads, buses, oil and gas, local electric and gas utilities, telecommunications, and financial services. Deregulation concentrated on eliminating trade barriers to industries and eliminating price controls. Free-market economic and political theorists fostered much of the deregulation, but so did the federal courts, which broke up the monopoly on telephone service held by the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (AT&T).

The results of deregulation were mixed. New airlines appeared, sparking fare wars and cheap flights on the most competitive routes. The AT&T breakup created long-distance telephone companies offering lower rates for calls. Deregulation, however, also produced disasters. A botched deregulation of the savings and loan industry contributed to the failure of thousands of savings and loan companies, forcing an enormous bailout of the industry financed by U.S. taxpayers. Competition in some industries led to workers being laid off or paid less and having benefits such as health insurance reduced or eliminated. As a result, a backlash developed against deregulation in the late 1980s.

After Republican victories in the 1994 midterm congressional elections, however, government regulation of businesses again came under attack. This time deregulators set their sights on environmental regulations, such as the federal Clean Air Act (1990) and the Clean Water Act (1972), as well as entry barriers and price controls. Once again, deregulatory zeal outpaced public support. Proregulation Democrats accused antiregulation Republicans of doing big business's bidding and claimed that corporate lobbyists played an unseemly role in deregulatory legislation. The Clinton Administration announced it would oppose deregulation policies that threatened to increase pollution and energy costs. Public opposition grew even stronger when a disastrously inept effort to deregulate the California utilities industry led to widespread power failures on the west coast. In the face of such opposition, Congress abandoned many of its most ambitious deregulatory plans. Thus, by the early twenty-first century, the battle between regulators and deregulators stood at a stalemate.

Bibliography

Drew, Elizabeth. Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Gingrich, Newt. To Renew America. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Kahn, Alfred E. The Economics of Regulation: Principles and Institutions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988.

Majone, Giandomenico, ed. Deregulation or Reregulation? Regulatory Reform in Europe and the United States. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Nocera, Joseph. A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Noll, Roger. The Political Economy of Deregulation: Interest Groups in the Regulatory Process. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1983.

—Thomas G. Gress/A. G.

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The verb has one meaning:

Meaning #1: lift the regulations on
  Antonym: regulate (meaning #2)

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Dansk (Danish)
v. tr. - fjerne reguleringer, liberalisere, privatisere

Nederlands (Dutch)
dereguleren (vrijmaken van beperkende voorschriften)

Français (French)
v. tr. - libérer, déréguler, déréglementer

Deutsch (German)
v. - deregulieren

Ελληνική (Greek)
v. - καταργώ κανονισμούς, ελέγχους

Italiano (Italian)
deregolamentare

Português (Portuguese)
v. - desregulamentar

Русский (Russian)
снимать ограничения

Español (Spanish)
v. tr. - desregular

Svenska (Swedish)
v. - avreglera

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
解除对...的管制

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. tr. - 解除對...的管制

한국어 (Korean)
v. tr. - 규제를 폐지하다, 통제를 철폐하다

日本語 (Japanese)
v. - 制限を解く, 価格統制を解除する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(فعل) يحرر تجارة أو عمل مثلا وما شابه من بعض القوانين والتنظيم‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. tr. - ‮הסיר הפיקוח מ-‬

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