Can you explain rather than simply state? Regulatory capture typically refers to regulations entrenching current players and increasing barriers to entry. By definition, less regulation, lowers barriers to entry of new participants. You surely cannot actually believe that no regulation increases barriers to entry of certain industries?

My understanding of regulatory capture is when the regulatory decision makers are beholden or acting in concert with those they purport to regulate.

Most voters think that some level of regulation is beneficial and support it. Politicians who advocate for the complete removal of regulations don't usually do well in the polls, but this is a widely held belief in right-wing thought. The market will do all the regulating necessary. This has quite obviously been proven incorrect over the years. Nevertheless, the idea persists.

The next most effective way to have no regulations is to keep the appearance of regulations and have the enforcers be completely ineffectual, thus regulatory capture.

So, you end up with the externally perverse-looking, but internally consistent situation where the right will support regulators' existence and even promote their people into those institutions.

Thank you for the decent explanation. You are certainly correct in your assesment. However, I was commenting on Andreesen's caricature of voters 'on the right'. While true that most voters support regulation, right-leaning voters are more likely not to support much at all, so they are entirely self consistent. When restricting yourself to only one 'side', then it's quite misleading to claim that right-leaning voters are siding with the kinds of people who enable regulatory capture.

Your explanation explains why regulatory capture may arise out of an interplay between right-leaning politicians and their constituents. Regulatory capture in your view arises when right-leaning politicians succumb to voters (not necessarily right-leaning ones) desire for regulation. However, this is an emergent phenomenon, not a tenet of right-leaning thought.

Presumably they are talking about how monopolies are hard to compete against, and that monopolies are a fairly common outcome of no regulation.

It's disingenuous to say that monopolies are an outcome of lack of regulation, when they are also an outcome of over regulation

Not really. The point is that in a regulatory vacuum, monopolies will exist. Therefore "less regulation" is not always better. That is the only point.

That being said, this is not an example of regulatory capture.

Can you cite an example of a popular right wing idea that promotes either a regulatory vacuum or regulatory capture?

Many right-wing people I talk to express the wish for less regulation all the time.

So you want more regulation made in an attempt to prevent regulatory loopholes from enabling private players to protect their market position using government regulation? Without any explanation, this position seems absolutely incoherent.

Umm, no? I want there to be regulation in place to prevent monopolistic / anti-trust behavior.

Many "right-wingers" I have talked to want to dismantle many of the regulations that have been put in place for expressly that purpose and actually do pretty well in that regard.

I don't generally want "more regulation". I want the right regulation.