To Regulate Or Not To Regulate
Parody of Act III, Scene 1 in Shakespeare's Hamlet

To regulate, or not to regulate: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of lesser fortune,
Or to take arms against a free economy,
And by opposing end it? To tax: to help;
No more; and by a help to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand market shocks
That wealth is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To tax, to help;
To give: retire freely: ay, there's the rub;
For in that social goal what dreams may die
When we have shuffled off this immoral coil,
Must give us pause: there's the companies
That make calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of work,
The bosses' wrong, the poor man's contumely,
The pangs of the layoff, the law's delay,
The ignorant executives and the spurns
The undue merit that the unworthy take,
When he himself might his existence make
With a base salary? who would workers bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the quest for something greater then,
The undiscover'd success from whose allure
No dolee returns, puzzles the state
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than deny to others what we know not of?
Thus government does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native dream of innovation
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of emotion,
And entrepreneurs of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Hayek! Sage, in thy publications
Be all thy goals remember'd.

- M. Harrison

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