Economic Corporatism - The Economist

Corporatism is the economic arm of fascism.  It is alive and well in America.  Of course leftists who specialize in modern corporatism are convinced, convinced that it doesn't exist.  But why else would Wall Street give most of its money to Democrats?  Here's some interesting thoughts from the Economist:
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Mr Chait's regulatory-capture denialism is especially notable when the matter at hand is the Washington-Wall Street nexus, as the case for a significant degree of coprorate control over financial regulation is extremely compelling. Indeed, that this revolving door is so well-trafficked constitutes perhaps the most impressive piece of evidence that financial regulators are too bound up socially, professionally, and ideologically with their regulatees to offer impartial oversight in the public interest. While I don't agree with all the details of, say, Simon Johnson's account of Wall Street's capture of Washington, much of it is quite convincing. For example:

One channel of influence was, of course, the flow of individuals between Wall Street and Washington. Robert Rubin, once the co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, served in Washington as Treasury secretary under Clinton, and later became chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee. Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs during the long boom, became Treasury secretary under George W.Bush. John Snow, Paulson’s predecessor, left to become chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, a large private-equity firm that also counts Dan Quayle among its executives. Alan Greenspan, after leaving the Federal Reserve, became a consultant to Pimco, perhaps the biggest player in international bond markets.

These personal connections were multiplied many times over at the lower levels of the past three presidential administrations, strengthening the ties between Washington and Wall Street. It has become something of a tradition for Goldman Sachs employees to go into public service after they leave the firm. The flow of Goldman alumni—including Jon Corzine, now the governor of New Jersey, along with Rubin and Paulson—not only placed people with Wall Street’s worldview in the halls of power; it also helped create an image of Goldman (inside the Beltway, at least) as an institution that was itself almost a form of public service.

Of course, financial markets are not the only ones largely regulated in the interests of dominant firms. Tim Wu's recent book, "The Master Switch", relates the sordid history of anti-competitive regulation in communications and media:

The federal government's role in radio and television from the 1920s through the 1960s, for instance, was nothing short of a disgrace. In the service of chain broadcasting, it wrecked a vibrant, decentralizes AM marketplace. At the behest of the ascendant radio industry, it blocked the arrival and prospetcs of FM, and then it put the brakes on television, reserving it for the NBC-CBS duopoly. Finally, from the 1950s through the 1960s, it did everything in its power to prevent cable television from challenging the primacy of the networks. 

... Time and again [the government] has stood beside concentrated power against the underdog at the expense of economic dynamism. Governments' tendency to protect large market players amounts to an illegitimate complicity, whether by reason of the firm's involvement in important government concerns..., or a general sense of obligation to protect big industries irrespective of their having become uncompetitive. 

Examples could be mutiplied ad nauseam. I should mention that neither Mr Johnson nor Mr Wu is remotely libertarian. Regulatory capture is far from an exclusively libertarian preoccupation. If one wishes to keep abreast of the latest national news in regulatory capture and other devices of American corporatism, one can do no better than the the work of the Washington Times' Timothy Carney, who does have some libertarian leanings. However, whatever one's ideological predilections, perusing Mr Carney's archives ought to be more than enough to disabuse anyone of the belief that "regulations being turned into weapons of business power" is not a "major, reccuring problem"..