At a "time of growing erosion and trust" and efforts "to increase political control over markets," CFTC Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo asserted the importance of independent financial regulation to free-market capitalism and individual liberty.

In remarks at the Global Financial Leadership Conference, Mr. Giancarlo said that the capitalist system provides consumers with the widest range of choices and motivates producers to provide desired goods and services at the lowest prices. He criticized governments and politicians that would treat markets as tools to help drive social, political and other government policies. He contended that prosperity is dependent on "open and competitive markets, combined with free enterprise, personal choice, voluntary exchange and legal protection of person and property."

Mr. Giancarlo also discussed insulating independent financial regulation from political influence, explaining that protecting federal market regulators from the current political atmosphere allows them to focus on regulating in the best interest of markets. He added that being removed from politics is one of the primary reasons why the U.S. markets continue to be the world's "deepest and most liquid."

Commentary / Steven Lofchie

CFTC Chair Giancarlo and SEC Commissioner Peirce are the two most important voices in financial regulation today. Each serves as a spokesperson for individual liberty. Each makes the connection between financial regulation and individual liberty.

Each of them is a "liberal" in the old-fashioned sense of the word, of prioritizing personal choice and of recognizing that governments should be limited in the power that they are granted to make decisions on behalf of individuals. With this understanding of the term, both Chair Giancarlo and Commissioner Pierce are liberals, not libertarians or anarchists. That is, they recognize that governmental regulation is essential to a prosperous society, but that governmental control is anathema to it.

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