Not according to my definition of "regulation".

That's a distinction without a difference.

There's an industry that manages risk.

Regulation (e.g., insurance) always develops spontaneously, because there is a market for reducing chaos.

There's a reason that George Orwell's 1984 prominently features the redefinition of language.

Necessary Regulation is that which spontaneously develops in the free market; consider, for example, the Underwriters Laboratories (UL).

Can't you just leave us the fsck alone!

Capitalism is predicated on voluntary exchange.

Um... How is this "capitalism" again?

Patronage and donations are voluntary funding. Taxation is involuntary funding.

This is the fundamental point.

If you have to subsidize it, then it ain't culture; it's history.

Please provide a link for downloading your video content, so that we don't have to suffer under this Flash player.

Are the regulators not also individuals? In the real world, they are not a class of special, noble beings; they are also individuals with the same failings of which you speak, and their industry is not set apart from the laws of the universe under which all other industries exist.

Voluntary interaction provides the only fundamental regulation that is required: Bankruptcy. The only way a bad organization can sustain itself is through forced funding by involuntary interaction (that is, coercion). This is also true of regulatory agencies; like any other company, a regulatory agency should instead be founded on capitalism as a "private" company.

In particular, what is "Government"? Any organization—any organization at all—that confiscates resources by threat of strike-first violence is a "governmental" organization. When one such organization becomes a monopoly, we call that organization "Government".

Government inevitably becomes just another bad company in the market place, one that doesn't go out of business because it is able to confiscate your resources by threat of violence; it doesn't give you the goods and services for which you personally think you are paying, but you have to pay them anyway—it's totally absurd and unconscionable. It is not a modern value to coerce resources from people by threat of violence. So, in fact, Government is actually the last barbaric vestige of a pre-modern civilization.

Indeed, the easiest way for a company to secure its own funding by coercion is to employ a specialist, Government, to "legalize" bad behavior, or "regulate" competitors out of business, etc. The fundamental problem here is a foundation of coercion, which is itself fundamentally a lack of regulation (as per above).

You are correct in that the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem, particularly ones that are completely unforeseen. But that's not the point of the free market; rather, it's about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design—the fantasies of bureacrats—because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

Easy. It is in their self-interest to avoid a society based on the theft of resources.

In the real world, "regulators" or "officials" (or whatever you want to call them) are not a class of special, noble beings; they are also individuals with the same failings of which you speak. However, a capitalist organization must secure funding through voluntary interaction, while a governmental organization secures its funding via coercion. A bad company can only sustain itself by coercing resources from people; indeed, bad companies tend to employ another bad company—the government—to provide the service of coercion for them (by "legalizing" bad behavior, or "regulating" their competitors out of business, etc.). However, getting someone else to do your dirty work makes no difference; it is not capitalism to coerce resources from people.

The Free Market does not assume everyone has access to sufficient information; the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem; the free market is about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design—the fantasies of bureacrats—because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

A common waterway, you say? That sounds like a... tragedy of the commons... not a tragedy of private ownership of resources.

So, now there's an organization called "the EPA". Great. Regardless of how well they perform, they get paid. If they do a lousy job, they don't go brankrupt, they get more money, which is coerced from people they call "citizens". Meanwhile, they are coercing not only individuals but entire industries into solutions that may have more to do with bureaucratic fantasy than workable reality. Also, a big bad energy company could use the EPA to regulate rival technology companies out of existence.

Seeing a river burn on national television probably changed the way a lot of people thought about the environment. Perhaps environmental consciousness became prominent regardless of the EPA—perhaps even despite the EPA.

Are the regulators not also individuals?

You're correct in that the free market does not promise an immediate solution to every problem; the free market is about allowing a solution to emerge organically over the long term through evolution by variation and selection. Even under relatively mindless influences, this is much more likely to yield sustainable results than an attempt at Intelligent Design, because an evolved solution is necessarily aligned with reality.

Voluntary interaction provides the only regulation that is required: Bankruptcy. The only way a bad organization can sustain itself is through forced funding by involuntary interaction (that is, coercion). Indeed, the easiest way for a company (such as a regulatory agency) to achieve this is to employ another bad company that specializes in coercion—an organization known colloquially as "the government", which can be used to "legalize" bad behavior, or "regulate" competitors out of business, etc. However, employing somebody else to do your dirty work makes no difference; it is not capitalism to take resources by coercion.

Learn how to read.