"That group of scholars and lawyers argued, with empirical precision..."
And "empirical precision" is easy to fake when you assume your conclusions in your premises. On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 5:10 AM, Eubulides <autoplec...@gmail.com> wrote: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/12/business/as-americans-take-up-populism-the-supreme-court-embraces-business.html > > [snip] > > Most important, however, may be a broad pro-business consensus within > the upper ranks of the legal profession, one that has been more than > two generations in the making. > > Paradoxically, the evolution may have its roots in the Democratic > Party. The early 20th-century approach closely associated with Supreme > Court Justice Louis Brandeis saw big business as a political problem, > not just an economic one. Big business, the thinking went, was > incompatible with democracy both because of its ability to influence > public officials and because of the power that big business had over > the lives of ordinary citizens. > > By the 1970s, however, leading Democratic intellectuals like John > Kenneth Galbraith were arguing that a frontal attack on big business > was passé and that the government’s focus should be maximizing > economic growth instead. These intellectuals proposed that liberals > should make their peace with large corporations and simply oversee > them as if they were giant utility companies. > > In his 1973 book “Economics and the Public Purpose,” Mr. Galbraith > argues “that antitrust is largely irrational,” said Barry C. Lynn, who > runs the Open Markets program at New America. “That we need to > concentrate things, put experts in control of them.” > > The movement essentially stripped considerations of political power > from regulation of corporations, and made it more of a technocratic > exercise. This set the stage for a second critical development: the > conservative assault on regulation, most famously from the law and > economics movement associated with the University of Chicago. > > That group of scholars and lawyers argued, with empirical precision, > that antitrust enforcement, as well as a variety of safety and > environmental regulations, often did more harm than good, and that > free markets were better at promoting growth. > > “That’s the one-two punch,” said K. Sabeel Rahman, a professor at > Brooklyn Law School who studies the intersection of economic > regulations and politics. “You move to a technocratic view, then ‘law > and economics’ uses those technocratic arguments against you.” > > [snip] > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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