Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Goldberg on Stakeholders

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From the Article:
Where government's touch is light, we see rapid innovation, but where government's hand is heavy, stakeholders are holding on for dear life.

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The standard left-wing complaint is to blame only big business and capitalism. But if you don't think the exact sort of thing happens under socialist and communist systems, you don't know anything about those systems.

Despite a century of anti-corporate rhetoric about the power of corporations, they actually come and go with amazing rapidity (Only 13% of firms on the Fortune 500 list in 1955 were there in 2011).

But government is forever. The state has the unique ability to protect existing "stakeholders" from the threats posed by innovation and competition, whether those stakeholders are businesses or unions, fat cats or philanthropies. That's where the votes are and where the checks comes from.

But progress — material, medical, economic — comes from innovation. Economist Deirdre McCloskey notes that until the 19th century, innovation was a negative word because innovators upset the established order and the powers that be.

Source, Jonah Goldberg, "Want an America That Works? Innovate, Don't Regulate," The Los Angles Times, February 25, 2014

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