Financial market self-regulation

Belief that financial markets, left to themselves, self-regulate through reputation and private due diligence. Regulatory intervention is deemed unnecessary or even harmful. Ideological condition of the absence of regulation that allowed Epstein to operate without registration for 38 years. Pervasive within the American financial environment 1990-2006 (repeal of Glass-Steagall 1999).

Self-regulation of markets is the dominant ideology of American finance from 1980 to 2008. It postulates that market mechanisms (reputation, due diligence, competition) are sufficient to prevent fraud and abuse. The SEC system relies on voluntary declarations of regulated entities: if you do not declare yourself, you do not exist. This is not a flaw—it is the fundamental principle of the system (SOC-CONCEPT-22: consensual surveillance). The repeal of Glass-Steagall (1999) and the resistance to the regulation of derivatives (Greenspan vs Brooksley Born, 1998) are the legislative manifestations of this belief. In the Epstein case, this ideology created the structural conditions for 38 years of financial impunity.