The latest Bloomberg Businessweek delivers this ?shocking? news:
The food industry’s embrace of government oversight illustrates an unacknowledged truth about the wary interaction between the public and private sectors. Executives complain about unelected bureaucrats complicating their lives and siphoning profits. Yet most large corporations long ago learned to live with regulation. Sometimes they even demand it. “Everyone thinks the business community hates regulations. Not only is that not true, it couldn’t be further from the truth,” says R. Bruce Josten, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s top lobbyist.
The key word in the preceding paragraph is ?large.? Large corporations learned long ago that they can handle increased regulation much more easily than can their small competitors. In other words, increased regulation helps protect the corporate status quo.
That?s why many businesses are happy to go along with ideas that clearly thwart competition and hurt consumers.
