What "one powerful entity" could you possibly be talking about? Where have I or anyone on this forum ever suggested replacing market economics with one all-powerful Agency of Everything?

I do understand that accusation would be a powerful weapon to use against anyone attempting to curb the abuses and excesses of predatory businessmen, but it is simply not true. Nor is it necessary to achieve that end. You see statists everywhere Tom, but there are none here.

I thought I made it perfectly clear in my post I was not opposed to capitalism. What I am opposed to is unregulated capitalism which inevitably leads to monopoly and exploitation, oligopoly and plutocracy. There is no divine right of capital any more than there is one for kings.

No business deliberately seeks out competition. It does everything it can to crush its competition. You and George Will would have me believe if capitalism was simply left alone it would tend to approach a benign equilbrium of fiercely competing industries, where merchants, workers, and customers would live in eternal profitable harmony and progress. I do not believe that. Historical evidence has indicated just the opposite. Go ahead, show me a counter-example.

Power gravitates to existing power, and political power inevitably accretes to economic power. You do not get a uniform continuum, you get accumulation and centralization accompanied by boom-and-bust oscillations and migration of wealth towards the top.

And why is our country so much better off than many others? We didn't invent capitalism. What does make our country special, and those others based on a system comparable to ours, is that we have legal and constitutional means of preventing the abuses of capital, through the consent of the governed (not just the owners)while simultaneously protecting property rights. A system which you and Mr Will are trying desperately to dismantle.

And none of this has anything to do with the inspiring history of the evolution of creosote technology.