Before and including the 1930s, there were no labor or minimum wage laws and workers exploited businesses and ignored any kind of safety which caused the creation of trade unions and labor laws Work . America has seen rivers catch fire due to pollution. So certainly some pollution standards were needed. The other side of the coin is the enormous and invasive amount of government regulations Americans see today. The problem with the system as it stands is that the American people have no moderation. One side wants to eliminate government from their lives in part to take advantage of the lower classes and allow greed to conquer everyone. While the other side hopes that the government is involved in everything to build a utopian and fantastic life. The liberal mentality is very close to believing that the government can regulate a utopian society in which everyone can satisfy their needs (if not by their own work, then at least by the government). Conservatives would have you believe that even people and businesses, left unchecked and unregulated, would migrate to some sort of utopian society, only with winners and losers, where hard work is always rewarded and the market regulates itself and if you are poor , it's only because of your lack of individual effort and skill. There is no evidence that any of these ideals work for long