By Douglas Kruger
WHAT a beautiful end to the year. The weather is unseasonably glorious, the commies are freaking out about Value Jersey, and Christmas lights twinkle from every mantel and rafter. Hosannah!
Soon we will segue into 2026, and that presents us with a choice. How much of our old baggage do we want to drag along with us?
At a personal level, we might elect to leave a bad habit or two back in December. At an island level, we can do the same. We’re small enough.
To accomplish that, there are necessary conditions. For an intelligent, agile, productive economy, we must first be free. Free to act broadly. And that entails shedding a great deal of our unnecessary regulatory burden.
Are we ready for that conversation?
Let’s begin by talking about the nature of rules.
Rules help. Except when they don’t.
That’s because they are actually incidental. The rules themselves are never the point. Instead, there is always a human aim to be achieved. These aims came first. Properly understood, they should have primacy. Rules are then superimposed after the fact. Supposedly to ensure safety, but often, merely to increase control, because power structures benefit from a never-ending proliferation of rules. Each new rule increases the total authority of the rule-makers. A loosening of the reins in the interests of freedom seems threatening to such structures, implying loss of control.
Economic historian Dr Thomas Sowell argues that much of the motivation behind government regulation is not about the public good, but about the acquisition and maintenance of power and control. His books go to pains to prove this, with countless examples of repeals leading directly to greater national prosperity.
Compounding the problem, those who propagate any system of rules inevitably begin to view their rules as the entire point. This was never meant to be so, and remains one of humanity’s greatest challenges concerning governance of any form.
So, how to turn the tide?
We don’t break or dismantle rules merely for the sake of rebellion. That’s just anarchy, and the compulsion to do so is juvenile. Nor is it the goal to become lawless; too far the other way.
Instead, we dismantle rules when doing so serves to free up human potential, helping us to achieve our original intended goals. And it matters that we do so, assertively, when those in power lose sight of the fact that rules are meant to be ancillary, not the point, and then strangle productivity and innovation at scale.
People who begin their careers in industry, then move to government, are generally better able to perceive this. Those who begin their careers within the governing structures, less so, insofar as they don’t understand the impact of their rules on productivity.
Now here we must give props to the Government of Jersey. This year, they committed to implementing the financial services competitiveness programme – a brilliant start. Keep going.
Such disruptions are important, because in both Jersey and the UK, productivity has been in decline for 20 years. In tandem, our public sector has been growing out of all proportion, entailing more rules, more taxes, more centralisation of power, all sold as “kindness”.
For those of us who seek deregulation, here is the thought-process in a nutshell:
The goals are more important than the rules.
Rules serve those in power, not those they are elected to represent.
Left unchecked, rules proliferate indefinitely, raising cost and destroying freedom.
No freedom equals no innovation, no building, no creating, no growth, no prosperity.
Bad rules aren’t inevitable. They are perfectly subject to re-evaluation.
When their harm outweighs their benefit, we should scrap bad rules.
If your inner voice is screaming, “Yes, but we can’t just deregulate our entire island!” I invite you to consider that the world’s biggest economy is doing exactly that right now, to its own great prosperity. Of course we can too. And we’re showing glimmerings of hope, with key people in government lately speaking up with courage.
Innovation and agility, of the kind that encourage entrepreneurship and spur prosperity, require significant freedom. Bad rules demoralise dynamic organisations and hamstring productive, creative individuals. They are the safe space of those who love groupthink, and who value compliance over achievement.
Freedom, by contrast, is the requisite condition for creativity, for innovation, for a society of dynamic makers and doers. And here’s the kicker: you can’t have both. It’s freedom and innovation, or big government and loads of rules. And you must choose.
Bad rules may mount up over time, layer upon layer. But when they have outlived their usefulness, these layers can be removed. Some will only go kicking, screaming and clinging by their fingernails to the doorposts. But a bad rule can absolutely be vanquished. A bureaucracy can be untangled. Indeed, a mountain of legislation can be dismissed in one fell swoop, with the right leadership and the right will, and even dinosaurs can become agile and dance again.
Others have done it, are busy doing it.
Right now, Value Jersey’s entire purpose is to study models of success, and then to recommend replicating what works, to the prosperity of our island. It would take a curious mindset indeed to see that as threatening. Or a deeply vested interest.
So, yes, rules help. Except when they don’t. And even though all bureaucratic rules are manmade, they tend to acquire mythical, greater-than-man status over time. A rule becomes “the way things have always been done”, which somehow acquires gravitas. We find it hard to conceive of a world without the rule. We struggle to find the courage to confront it. It comes to seem terribly important.
But we in Jersey can think bigger than that. A new year is our invitation to do so.
It’s about placing freedom and innovation above conformity and control. It’s about valuing the free individual as the central and paramount unit of civilisation, and governing structures as secondary. It’s about fundamental optimism, the courage to let people try. It’s about remembering that before the rules were ever introduced, there were dreams. These dreams became goals. And those goals still exist, and still matter. And with courage and conviction, they can still be attained.
Douglas Kruger is a bestselling author and Hall of Fame speaker. His books are all available via Amazon and Audible.
