If conservatives got their open marketplace and maintained a truly hands-off approach, most of the corporations they seek to liberate from government control would cease to exist. They couldn’t survive on a level playing field, because corporations are themselves a byproduct of government regulation.

Although it launched an era of home ownership as private enterprise, Levittown was itself made possible by a massive government subsidy. Even though a lion’s share of the money ultimately ended up going to the Levitt brothers, without those subsidies the vast majority of residents never would have become home owners on their own. Not that its

“Under monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through. The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an

the bias of centralized currency is toward scarcity and hoarding. This slows down the rate at which money circulates, while concentrating wealth at the top. Instead of encouraging cooperation and community, it promotes competition and individuality. Worst of all, instead of supporting a sustainable economy, it depends on an economy that grows

Where armies and navies had for most countries consisted of temporary forces raised to wage a specific conflict, the emergence of corporations with long-term agendas now necessitated full-time professional armed forces.

Going into debt, distancing ourselves from our neighbors, and striving for conformity became equated with freedom.

Corporatism depends first on our disconnection. The less local, immediate, and interpersonal our experience of the world and each other, the more likely we are to adopt self-interested behaviors that erode community and relationships.

The problem is that amassing a huge wad of cash and then doling it out through a centralized foundation is structurally biased toward exacerbating corporatism, not reducing it.

As the novelist and New York Times book reviewer Walter Kirn wrote, “Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is a pop-science tribute to the hopeful notion that standing in the right place with the right lever is often all it takes to move the world. Like Power of Positive Thinking and How to Win Friends & Influence People, the book should have a