Left-leaning libertarians and libertarian-leaning leftists have been saying for years that “liberals” (in the mainstream sense), far from wielding the club of governmental regulation against big business, have been among the chief enforcers of corporate interests.
Now we get confirmation straight from the horse’s mouth. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Conical hat tip to Lew Rockwell and Ralph Raico), Obama, Biden, and Clinton all have a higher “pro-business” record than Ron Paul – because (and give them credit for their honesty) the Chamber’s criterion for being “pro-business” is support for corporate subsidies and special privileges, not support for free markets.
The right-leaning Washington Examiner’s story makes it sound as though it’s liberals rather than conservatives that are pawns of the plutocracy (hence their headline “New Chamber index shows conservatives aren’t corporate pawns”), but a look at the winners of the Chamber’s “Spirit of Corporate Welfare Enterprise” award shows Republicans and Democrats both eagerly filling the trough – with my own state’s Senator Richard Shelby at the top of the list.
We’ve heard the “conservatives support business” and “liberals hate business” rhetoric for so long it’s difficult to believe anybody in the mainstream press would contradict it. Just yesterday I heard John Bolton on Fox News talking about how the free market is more important than corporations.
Josh Bolton is right this time. The theoretical “Free Market” would be and in fact is more important than corporations! Unfortunately, we have a “free market” in theory and not in actuality. Corporations themselves prevent “free market” existance in pursuit of their own priorities such as power and money, as one begets the other. Hence, we have monopolies, eventually oligarchies. “Free Enterprise”, in its purest form cannot cannot exist as long as the human element is involved.