This is a great illustration of the biggest flaw in current conservative political philosophy.
The far right and libertarians are quick to generate hysteria about the danger of government power, while ignoring the equally grave threat of the power of corporations.
True as far as the far right and the "corporate wing" of libertarians goes. OTOH, many libertarians recognize the faulty reasoning behind
CATO and
Reason's corporate cheerleading, and believe corporations need to go.
And it's worth noting that corporations don't have the power to regulate, to restrict competitors from entering the marketplace, to require consumers to buy their products, or to force raw materials producers to sell to them. Corporations don't have the power to drag you before the bar for your "sins" against them, nor to take fines from your wallet, to throw you in jail for refusing to pay, or invade your home and drag you off if you refuse to show up for incarceration.
To do all those things, they need the active collusion of the very government structures that are supposed to protect the individual from predation. Note how often "industry leaders" are involved in writing the legislation that supposedly keeps them in check.
Corporations have way, way, way too much power. But they were granted every bit of that power, from their very creation onward, by legislation and the courts.
Sans legislation, corporations as we know them today would not exist.
The left's ongoing belief that one day government will magically start taking up for the consumer instead of the people who bought them is pure fantasyland.
Government is the buddy that holds them over the barrel while corporations screw them over.
And because Uncle Sam pats them on the cheek as they're being ravaged, and says the other guy got nailed twice as hard, it's their "patriotic duty," it's not that bad, and it will be over soon, the left thinks of him as their savior.
