Hong Kong and Singapore certainly have zoning and land use regulation. They have consumer safety regulations. They have much more strict drug law penalties. Thereay be areas where they have less regulation but they are hardly the poster children for "minimal regulation" countries.

I am not at all saying that our level of regulation is perfect. There are lots of bad regulations that exist to protect industry profits or simply remove citizen choice out of fear.

But they have much more stringent enforcement.

Those poorer nations with less regulations don't enforce what they have. See, for instance, the post about massive sand theft in India; rampant corruption enables anyone to bypass the law amd cause harm to others. Passing more regulations won't fix that; said nations have tried that and failed.

I specifically meant HK and Singapore.