I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well,

I think about this (in different flavors) all the time. It all comes down to: how much government control do you want in society? For places like the US, well, the answer was at the time of its founding: as little as we can afford (but then again, I don't think the founding fathers could have predicted how absolutely gargantuan the federal government was going to get). The idea of "as little government as possible" was a rough model that continued to thrive as people migrated westward and states were incorporated. With such little oversight came eras like the Gilded Age, during one can see the birth of the modern corporation and the freedoms they took to grow and exploit their markets as they saw fit, all in the name of profits. We're now arguably in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age; the size and scope of tech companies today would make the JP Morgan's/Rockefeller's of yester-century red with envy, and we've done jack shit as a society to hold them accountable for just about everything. And if we're in the middle of a 2nd Gilded Age, are we also in need of a 2nd wave of Progressivism? Most likely. I don't know how much they could get done though. The modern model of policymaking (especially at the federal level) is so choked with so many voices trying to get the attention of politicians that you often need a hefty budget to get anything done. Even then, it's at a snail's pace. And even if something smelling of a 2nd Progressive wave started to percolate, the sky-high polarization of public discourse on the Internet would make it nigh-impossible to get the facts straight. It makes it an even tougher sell to Americans that hate big government that we need to implement sensible legislation that is in their best interest. This is probably one of the biggest hurdles today to getting anything done: convincing the general public that corporations are not your friend and do not/never will have your best interests at heart.