In his Freeman column today, Sheldon Richman writes about Ralph Nader’s recent WSJ piece, a piece which shows glimmers of comprehension that big government leads to corporatism: government power and wealth used to aid and rich big business. (Nader doesn’t mention it, but a lot of non-profit institutions also benefit from the misuse of government, such as unions and universities.)
Liberals like to say that they’re concerned about “the little guy” and automatically assume that government is THE way to help them. Nader seems to understand that the mega-state that liberals (or better, “progressives”) have built does a lot of harm to those people.
Maybe this is sort of a Nixon goes to China moment. If a leftist icon like Nader is willing to say that corporatism is a big problem, maybe we can get through to others that it’s all right to criticize big government (and not just when Republicans are in control). Maybe we’re at the time when leftists will listen to the argument that government economic manipulation CANNOT make the economy more productive or improve living standards generally.
