“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Howard Beales and Tim Muris review the results of the Federal Trade Commission’s previous efforts (in the 1970s) to reshape the economy through rushed rulemaking; it is a disastrous history that the FTC’s new majority seems determined to repeat.

Beales and Muris’s op-ed is based their new report Back to the Future: How Not to Write a Regulation, published by the American Enterprise Institute, which discusses recent changes in the rulemaking process that enhance political control and reduce public input. Both the op-ed and report are essential reading for understanding why successful rulemaking requires accountability, transparency, and critical evaluation. (You can also catch a conversation on the new report here.)