Long before “crony capitalism” became a battle cry, it was a staple of conservative and libertarian economics to note that big business is a fickle ally in the war for economic liberty (and 4F in the culture war). Like the “late Walder Frey” in Game of Thrones, big business is often tardy to the battle and keen on switching sides when there’s advantage to be gained. “The simple truth,” observed Albert Jay Nock, “is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government they can use.”
Big businesses usually become big in the first place thanks to the glories of the free market, but, all too often, they stay big thanks to politicians who find them useful. Medieval guilds petitioned the crown to bar from the realm traders with better and cheaper wares. Andrew Carnegie, when bedeviled by competitors, called for “government control” of the steel industry as a way to cement U.S. Steel’s status — and profits. Gerald Swope, the head of GE, paved the intellectual road to the New Deal’s cartelization of industry with his corporatist Swope Plan. Contrary to Barack Obama’s claims in stump speeches, the insurance industry backed his health-care takeover in the hopes of becoming government-protected utilities. How many digital-era Andrew Carnegies lobbied the White House for “net neutrality” to protect their fiefdoms — only to get more than they bargained for? (Of course, there have been exceptions. Horrified by what the New Deal had become and where it was heading, some big businessmen got together to create the American Enterprise Association in 1938, to promote a “greater public knowledge and understanding of the social and economic advantages accruing to the American people through the maintenance of the system of free, competitive enterprise.” That group eventually became the American Enterprise Institute, where I am writing this very column.)
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