Historical Comment

Back in the late nineteenth century, the rapid industrialization of the United States unfolded in an environment virtually without regulation. That's not to say that the government had no role in shaping the economic climate: it was quite active in providing subsidies to certain industries (notably the railroads), adopting monetary polices that favored bankers and investment houses, and supporting efforts to aggressively suppress efforts by workers to attain any kind of power in relation to management in the labor market. The lack of regulation itself amounted to an open invitation for entrepreneurs to pursue monopolies to dominate their respective areas of production, following the model of Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Of course the incredible abuses of those monopolies, with their unchecked power to gouge consumers and workers alike, not to mention the clout they exercised through bought off legislators, led to a pretty significant backlash in the form of a series of political and economic reforms in the years leading up to the first World War. Those reforms, which were never popular with the so-called free market advocates (though the markets themselves were never free, since access and opportunity were closely guarded by the few who got there first, with government cooperation or not) became a huge part of the foundation for the mid-twentieth century prosperity enjoyed almost across-the-board in this country.

I bring this all up because I see these Tea Baggers storming the capital with signs that are off the wall stupid and a message that suggests they like the power to be wielded by private corporations whose sole interest is their own bottom line. There's a lot to be angry with the government about, and certainly elements of the plans currently being debated on health care reform are far from perfect, but attacking it for trying to break the strangle-hold of rapacious monopolies seems a particularly short-sighted approach. If they really want to go after government malfeasance, then their target should be the anti-trust exemption currently extended by the government to the insurance industry-- a debilitating policy that creates monopolistic exploitation by eliminating competition. If that were the only thing to change as a result of current demands by a wide majority of Americans who want improvements to the health care system, then we'd all be better off. But I didn't see or read anything today to indicate this group of protesters even know of that exemption's existence. I think protest is healthy and even necessary in a democracy, but it's not terribly effective when based on ignorance.