I think it is evil, though I don't think the regulators think of themselves as evil. They just have a paternalistic mindset that causes them to violate our property rights for our own good. They don't get that by limiting certain investments to accredited investors that they limit the upward mobility of us poor people. They don't get that by restricting IPOs to millionaires that they prevent the formation of startups.

They think they are protecting us from ourselves - which is a concept that needs to die. It is a wolf masquerading as a benevolent sheep. Individuals are the best judges of what is best for themselves and are better able to bear the disappointment and learn lessons from their mistakes. A better SEC would investigate and expose scammers, but not be a gatekeeper.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

-C.S. Lewis