Does Society Have Too Many Rules?

"My wife and I, our son and daughter, and my in-laws share a single house in the Long Island suburbs. Our place is big, but crowded: all of us have hobbies, and so every shelf or surface contains toys, books, art supplies, sporting goods, craft projects, cameras, musical instruments, or kitchen gadgets. Before the table can be set for dinner, it must be cleared of a board game or marble run."

"The property includes two broken-down sheds and a garage. It would make sense for us to convert them into more useful structures-say, home offices or play spaces. But rules constrain us. My mother-in-law has briefed me on the situation many times, but the specifics still make my head swim. A half-century-long saga involves retrozoning and upzoning, setbacks from property lines, and previously approved applications that have expired and now need to be resubmitted along with new, forbidding fees."

A three‑generation household illustrates how pervasive rules shape daily life, from crowded living spaces to limits on converting sheds and garages. Local zoning and permitting processes can block homeowners’ practical improvements through retrozoning, expired approvals, setbacks, and steep resubmission fees. Everyday operational rules at businesses and healthcare can feel mechanical and arbitrary, such as performative ID checks and restrictive vaccine policies. Unequal application of rules—where ordinary people face procedural burdens while powerful actors act with impunity—erodes legitimacy. Effective rules require clarity, proportionality, foreseeable enforcement, and procedures that make compliance feasible and aligned with public interests.

Read at The New Yorker