Under Rule of Law, one set of humans write the laws. If you break them another set of humans decide on your guilt and punishment.
Set 1 (legislators) can and do write laws to favor and disfavor individual actors, and I agree that that is in part unavoidable.
Set 2 (judges and juries) are appointed randomly after it's become a legal matter, so it's impossible for any inappropriate influence in either direction before that.
And there is no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business.
So I think you're right that this problem always exist, but in my estimation it's a few orders of magnitude bigger under a "Rule of Man" regulation scheme.
> no "set 3" of regulators that issue orders during the day-to-day running of the business
You mentioned 2 branches of government, the legislative and judicial. But the third branch, the executive, does (in part) exactly what you described above.
Taken to the logical extreme, your view means we should replace every government adminstrator with a court, including for mundane decisions like whether to grant a marriage license. That system would be horribly inefficient and probably not much more consistent or effective since random people off the street won't have the domain knowledge a regulator has.
Also, regulators are representatives of the people and are subject to laws just like everyone else. The escape hatch of the legal system is always available -- if you think the regulator got it wrong, then take it to a court, and a judge and jury decides who is right.
I agree, but you proposed a stringent definition for 'Rule of Law' that seemed to eliminate the possibility of government regulators possessing independent decision-making authority over citizens and businesses alike.
I mean, how do even mundane things like zoning codes and work permits work in this universe where there are no regulators and gov't bureaucrats? Everything must go through a court? Why are you so sure a group of 12 random people will come to decisions more effectively than a bureaucrat in a domain that requires specialized knowledge?
In any case, I fully agree that sometimes regulators, or regulations are bad. But this particular case is an example of regulation working as designed. The NHTSA has been at the forefront of working with the self-driving car industry to make sure there is a legal path to developing, testing, and releasing this tech. Textbook example of regulators doing their job without imposing undue burdens on the regulated industry.
> how do even mundane things [...] work in this universe where there are no regulators and gov't bureaucrats?
I talked about regulators. You added bureaucrats on your own.
Perhaps NHTSA is a great organization. I know nothing about them specifically. I'm talking about general principles.
> Why are you so sure a group of 12 random people will come to decisions more effectively than a bureaucrat in a domain that requires specialized knowledge?
I'm saying they'll be more impartial. Don't know about effective.
As long it's humans that write and execute laws, this is strictly unavoidable. It doesn't depend on the particular details of how we do regulation.