Lewis H. Lapham Quotes
Let the corporations do as they please -- pillage the environment, falsify their advertising, rig the securities markets -- and it is none of the federal government's business to interfere with the will of heaven.
Lapham, Lewis H. Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, p. 147.
The mantra was not heard much after the collapse of the ‘smart’ markets in 2008 and the ‘dumb’ governments had to come to the rescue of the economy all over the industrialized world.
Mises observes the classic philosophical quandary of business and commerce. If we cannot leave everything to the market place and the capitalists and entrepreneurs because they are morally and ethically fallible, will not the government people who regulate and control them be equally moral and fallible? Mises critics point out that Mises misses the difference in a democracy, that if fallible businessmen err, all can suffer and their personal vested interests do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the majority in general. If the government representative of the majority are fallible and err, the majority can correct them and if the majority does not, the people have undone themselves and have not been the victims of the foibles of a few privileged people in the society. Mises argues that it is the minority who, if left alone, would produce the best standard of living for the majority who should exercise they right to regulation only by their acts as consumers.
The President had decided to aggressively push for railroad regulation to end the rate rebate abuses that were used to support the monopolies like Standard Oil. In vintage Roosevelt tactics, he gave his first major speech on the subject in the setting and forum that would be most opposed to it. The Union League Club of Philadelphia in included the wealthiest men in the area where were most opposed to any Federal Regulation of anything. All the major railroad executives and stock owners and traders were also members. The President wanted to persuade the opponents to change their positions, and sometimes he did. He also was driven by his concept of sports and athletics so that the “opposition” should have “fair notice” for the contest ahead.
Lewis Henry Lapham is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He is the founder of Lapham's Quarterly, a quarterly publication about history and literature, and has written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
