Royalist Trust Busting

Royalist Trust-Busting

Annually on this date, the Justice Department honors the founder of the FBI: Charles J. Bonaparte--yes, those Bonapartes (he was the great-nephew of Napoleon I). As Attorney General under Theodore Roosevelt, Bonaparte was an ardent trustbuster. This anti-business alliance of American and French aristocracy reminds us of the truth the anti-bourgeois movement is very often a movement ostensibly for plebians but led by patricians.

Surprise: Demonizing business is bad for business

Tad DeHaven of the Cato Institue takes note of a Washington Post editorial that seems to flirt with the concept of “regime uncertainty.” That is the view that says: When you have a national leader who has no idea how the economy works, who comes from a class that despises business, and who is fully prepared to use his powers against his perceived enemies--well, you are probably not going to get a lot of businessmen betting millions and billions of dollars on long-range investments. It is a subtle thought, I know, and somewhat counter-intuitive to politicians and their flacks who look upon businessmen as dependable milch cows.

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