How would we know?
So keeping with this example, on the one people were dying from dangerous working conditions. So the fix was to create a regulatory body with broad authority to create safety rules. Maybe not so bad at first, but at some point they need to start justifying their existence, and, you know, when all you have is a regulatory hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Not to mention, power corrupts, and the more power regulatory bodies have the more companies want to have unprotected sex with them and make unwieldy regulatory offspring which helps cronies.
Maybe there was/is some other way to fix the original problem. Something less crony than creating massive bureaucracies of unelected law makers, attractive to people with money and influence.
