The Left, Right and Center all hate them: powerful special interests who use government power for their own private benefit. Now there is a new, artful and memorable one-word pejorative to describe those who abuse government power in this way: bottleneckers.
In this presentation, Dick Carpenter of the Institute for Justice (IJ) will discuss themes from IJ’s new book on the subject — Bottleneckers: Gaming the Government for Power and Private Profit. Carpenter is co-author of the book, which provides a rich history and well-researched examples of bottleneckers in one occupation after another. Among the trades documented in the book are: alcohol distributors (who gave bottleneckers their name), casket cartels, cosmetologists, interior designers, tour guides, taxicabs and New York City’s dollar-vans, street vendors, and opinion columnists and bloggers, each of which has been the focus of bottleneckers bent on using government force to keep others out. Carpenter will also discuss positive reforms.
Here is the video from the event.