I spent two weeks delivering for Uber Eats and made $4.40 per hour

That sounds great. Let's regulate it. I am from Venezuela and can tell you the wonders regulation has done for my country's economy.

I'm from Norway and the economy is quite regulated. We're still/therefore (take your pick) very successful [1].

Macro economy is complicated. It seems obvious to me the it's not as simple as "just let everyone run free". On the other hand regulation has it's disadvantages as well. Complicated.

[1] as in #3 in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

I'd say corruption is a bigger culprit than regulation in Venezuela.

It is complicated. Sweden also seems very regulated (as most of the EU).

Measuring "regulation" isn't straightforward, but based on the Heritage Foundation's criteria, Norway has a relatively light load. It's basically on par with the US.[1] Its a very free economy by international standards. Venezuela is near the bottom of the list, just above North Korea.

Economic regulation and the extent of the social safety net can be quite independent of each other.

[1] http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14330613 and marked it off-topic.

Please don't do generic ideological arguing on HN. It's off-topic here, and not the benign kind of off-topic.

I respect that your comments arise from a serious and even tragic situation, and am sure most everyone here shares that feeling.