The essence of populist politics is that political and economic freedom are deeply intertwined—that real democracy requires not just an opportunity to vote but

The essence of populist politics is that political and economic freedom are deeply intertwined—that real democracy requires not just an opportunity to vote but an opportunity to compete in an open marketplace. There's a deep confusion at the heart of the article. Wal-Mart got huge because it was extremely competitive and because most regions' marketplaces were open to its very effective competition. The argument is confused because it's trying to criticize some outcomes of markets without admitting that those outcomes are natural to market competition and only preventable by non-market mechanisms. He can't just say "markets have both good and bad effects." Every unwanted effect of the markets has to be rhetorically set off as if it were separate from the Real Market, which every right-thinking American knows to be made of unalloyed goodness. Members of the jury, my client did not take that purse; the arm and hand incidentally attached to my client took that purse. The author doesn't want powerful corporations or individuals to have too much economic clout, relative to the median citizen. I am sympathetic to that. But he gets twisted in pretzels trying to praise that kind of freedom in the vocabulary of market freedom. It doesn't work. Big business is the natural outcome of robust competition between smaller businesses. (Not every natural thing is desirable.) Reviving small grocers and other fondly remembered set decorations from Main Street Americana would require substantial protections from competition for small business. It would also tend to increase retail prices. A Mom and Pop retailer cannot obtain much economy of scale. That may be acceptable to prevent overlarge accumulations of financial power in private hands. I'm open to that argument. But I have enough capital that I could imagine joining the re-invigorated ranks of the petite bourgeoisie if I didn't have to compete with bigger businesses; most Americans don't have even that. At one step further back, my reaction to this article is: Were the last good populist ideas invented before 1960? Is the future of populism a nostalgia-off between conservatives LARPing as coal miners and liberals LARPing as trust-busters? Enough with looking for greatness in the rear view mirror, already. America's post-WW II economic golden age was a one time only deal. Think about dealing with the future starting from 2017 instead of 1947.