Regulatory Capture

Click here for "Why We Don't Let Foxes in the Henhouse" by David Macary at CounterPunch.

"The Commission is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for government supervision of the railroads, while, at the same time, that supervision is almost entirely nominal.” [italics added by author]
—Richard Olney, U.S. Attorney General, referring to the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission), circa 1889.

"If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don't you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don't you see that they must capture the government in order not to be restrained too much by it? Must capture the government? They have already captured it.” [italics added by author]
—Woodrow Wilson, 1913

"Regulatory Capture is defined as the phenomenon where '….a regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. [It] is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce "negative externality." The agencies are called Captured Agencies.'”

[Ah, yes, 1889 and 1913. Those were the days, my friend. The Gilded Age. No unions; no minimum wage or benefits; unrestricted working hours; no safety standards; child labour; nominal government regulation; low taxes; corrupt cops, judges, Congressmen, and state legislators; no SEC; no EPA -- oh, wait: That's Scott Walker's Wisconsin today.]