Will Wilkinson Says That the Executive of the Modern State Is But a Committee for Managing the Affairs of the Ruling Class...
Didn't somebody else say that, sometime?
Will:
The prevalence of corporatism: Jon Chait's regulatory-capture denialism | The Economist: I should clarify that I did not mean to be pointing out a huge hole in the logic of liberal redistribution. Rather, I was pointing out a problem for the classical progressive idea of the regulatory state as a check on concentrated economic power. In any case, I must say I'm dazzled by the audacity of Mr Chait's claim that the "private capture of public functions" is rare. My reading of the economic and political history of the United States is that regulation is very, very, very often turned into (or originally fashioned) as a weapon of business power.... Mr Chait's regulatory-capture denialism is especially notable when the matter at hand is the Washington-Wall Street nexus, as the case for a significant degree of corporate control over financial regulation is extremely compelling. Indeed, that this revolving door is so well-trafficked constitutes perhaps the most impressive piece of evidence that financial regulators are too bound up socially, professionally, and ideologically with their regulatees to offer impartial oversight in the public interest.... [F]inancial markets are not the only ones largely regulated in the interests of dominant firms.... The federal government's role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace...
