{"id":30451,"date":"2018-02-02T07:04:27","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T12:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30451"},"modified":"2018-02-02T07:09:50","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T12:09:50","slug":"why-special-interests-try-to-take-control-of-governments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30451","title":{"rendered":"Why Special Interests Try to Take Control of Governments"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/wire\/why-special-interests-try-take-control-governments\">Why Special Interests Try to Take Control of Governments<\/a><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"page-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 16px;\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/slideshow\/public\/marionette.PNG?itok=oxnkmyoe\" alt=\"marionette.PNG\" \/><\/h3>\n<div class=\"body-content clearfix\">\n<p>George Monbiot, popular Guardian columnist, beacon light of global environmentalism, is also the kind of progressive who insists on seeing the world as he wishes it were and not as it really is. Wearing these kind of blinders will not help us get a better environment or better world.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2018\/jan\/24\/end-civilisation-take-different-path\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his latest column<\/a>, Monbiot states that: \u201cThe forces that threaten to destroy our wellbeing are\u2026 the same everywhere: primarily the lobbying power of big business and big money, which perceive the administrative state as an impediment to their immediate interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is nonsense. Big business and big money, along with other special interests, such as Big labor and Big law and Big education, and all the other \u201c Bigs\u201d absolutely love the \u201cadministrative state\u201d because they have learned how to control it and use it for their own self-interest.<\/p>\n<p>This is the \u201c progressive paradox\u201d that Monbiot resolutely ignores: the more the state increases its powers over the economy, the more motivated special interests become to take control of the state in order to thwart genuine market competition. The resulting corruption just gets worse and worse.<\/p>\n<p>Has Monbiot ever considered what persuaded enough voters to hold their noses and choose Trump? It was not that the administrative state provided honest government under the prior administration. Nor was the prior administration making any effort to hold back the power of special interests in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Two examples will suffice. In the \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d bill, President Obama achieved his long sought objective of increasing taxes on the rich. But in the same bill, passed at midnight, he snuck in subsidies for his own corporate supporters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Special Interests Try to Take Control of Governments George Monbiot, popular Guardian columnist, beacon light of global environmentalism, is also the kind of progressive who insists on seeing the world as he wishes it were and not as it really is. Wearing these kind of blinders will not help us get a better environment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2299,4012,6112,379,16002,7617,11225,6917],"class_list":["post-30451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-control","tag-environmentalism","tag-george-monbiot","tag-government","tag-hunter-lewis","tag-mises-institute","tag-special-interests","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30454,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451\/revisions\/30454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}