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This is the great tragedy of American democracy through all its history. One camp sees that there are big businesses that have achieved rentier positions in th

This is the great tragedy of American democracy through all its history. One camp sees that there are big businesses that have achieved rentier positions in the economy and advocates passing laws or using force to punish them. The other camp sees that it is usually federal rules + global competition which created behemoths in the first place and advocates against further restrictive laws. The two camps fight about whether there should be more rules or less. Meanwhile the problems are left to fester until the next crisis, when the New Rules are able to win. The civil war, the banking crises of the industrial revolution, the Great Depression, and the "great" recession, etc.

belorn 9y ago
While I agree with the conclusion that the problems are left to fester, I don't think that those two camps has really existed like that for a long while now. Both camps are in desperate need to have close connection with big businesses during election time, so what they do is employing different tactics to siphon private money into politics. One camp does this by back rooms deal and government contracts, positioning companies to stay ahead of the competition. Big businesses have to pay or the competition will do it. The other camp does this through removing rules which otherwise would allow competition to grow into a threat. The methods of the first camp get describe by the second as threats, and big businesses have to pay to remove both. No one is paying to deal with next crisis.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  I did not mean to equate "camps" just with the republican and democratic parties of today. I meant camps to describe groups of people with similar opinions at the same time in history. For example in the civil war era you had northern opinions which wanted tariffs, more navy power, etc. and saw plantations as rentiers on "property" they should not have ever owned. In the other camp you had southerners who opposed federal restrictions on trade and were very conscience of the competition between global powers, with England wanting cotton yet also outlawing the gulf stream slave trade. And I should have been more articulate: I am not refuting the parent post about when perhaps the current camps formed. Just that the formation of such camps is not unusual in American history.

belorn 9y ago

While I agree with the conclusion that the problems are left to fester, I don't think that those two camps has really existed like that for a long while now. Both camps are in desperate need to have close connection with big businesses during election time, so what they do is employing different tactics to siphon private money into politics. One camp does this by back rooms deal and government contracts, positioning companies to stay ahead of the competition. Big businesses have to pay or the competition will do it. The other camp does this through removing rules which otherwise would allow competition to grow into a threat. The methods of the first camp get describe by the second as threats, and big businesses have to pay to remove both. No one is paying to deal with next crisis.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
I did not mean to equate "camps" just with the republican and democratic parties of today. I meant camps to describe groups of people with similar opinions at the same time in history. For example in the civil war era you had northern opinions which wanted tariffs, more navy power, etc. and saw plantations as rentiers on "property" they should not have ever owned. In the other camp you had southerners who opposed federal restrictions on trade and were very conscience of the competition between global powers, with England wanting cotton yet also outlawing the gulf stream slave trade. And I should have been more articulate: I am not refuting the parent post about when perhaps the current camps formed. Just that the formation of such camps is not unusual in American history.