The Federal government isn't the only game in town anymore when it comes to central planning.
In the tradition of F. A. Hayek, the classic definition of socialism associates it with central planning by a government authority. Hayek did most of his writing in the New Deal era in which government did all the central planning. Over the past fifty years, as the economy has grown, some sectors have become less regulated even as other sectors have become more regulated.
The result is private socialism. Under the accounting and SEC rules that exist now, most of the major decisions made by large corporations (such as the investment banks that taxpayers narrowly missed paying to bailout today) are made by a small group of central planners -- the management and board of directors. Have I ignored the say of institutional shareholders and hostile takeovers play within the ecosystem? Not really. Did those shareholders or hostile buyers do anything to avert the current financial crisis? Could they have?
The way to keep a game safe and honest is to demand transparency and a level playing field. Remember when hockey players used to play without helmets? Most players wanted to give up the advantage of peripheral vision to reduce the likelihood of head injuries but few did until helmets were required.
There isn't any good reason why public corporations should have to reproduce the bureaucracies of government contemplated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Get rid of that garbage and pass a law that would make a difference: require every public corporation to put its journal entries online along with its financial statements. Let public companies compete with their cards face up. Long term, this means everybody gets what they deserve -- investors, customers, managers, everybody.
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