Matt Yglesias on the nature political conflict

I don't know which is more amazing:  a man on the left speaking sense or me giving him credit for it.  You be the judge:

To borrow an idea from Robin Hanson, I think it’s useful to think about political conflict in terms of valorized figures. On the right, you see a lot of valorization of businessmen. On the left, you see a lot of valorization of pushy activists who want to do something businessmen don’t like. Formally, the right is committed to ideas about free markets and the left is committed to ideas about economic equality. But in practice, political conflict much more commonly breaks down around “some stuff some businessmen want to do” vs “some stuff businessmen hate” rather than anything about markets or property rights per se. Consequently, on the left people sometimes fall into the trap of being patsies for rent-seeking mom & pop operators when poor people would benefit more from competition from a corporate bohemoth.

This is why big cities shut out Walmart despite the very significant consumer benefits of having an aggressive price competitor and highly productive and profitable business in their communities.  It is also why some conservatives mindlessly take the side of conservative "rent seekers" like physicians (who are paid far more in the US than any other place in the world) rather than seeing them for what they are:  overpaid clients of the welfare state.  Maybe we can learn things from each other after all.