Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support.
Well, I'm always skeptical of MSM interpretations - FEE links this article to this one, Business-Government Collusion
Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - February 1995
by Eric-Charles Banfield.
You can take this to the bank if he's a true student of Ayn Rand,
"As a champion of the free-enterprise system in Congress, Chris Cox knows that a free economy is built on trust," the president said in the Roosevelt Room, as he introduced the third man in his tenure to lead the commission.
Ms. Rand didn't cut corner-cutters or subsidy seekers any slack. They're part and parcel of what's screwing up our country. I'm quite sure that she would have been quite sanguine with Lew Rockwell's saying, "Through it all, the Libertarian theme has remained the same: Liberty for everyone, state privileges for no one." [Except that it was Lew Rockwell saying it about Libertarians, I mean; Objectivists would be perfectly happy to say that about themselves.]
Banfield's caveat, mentioned above, is this:
...[O]ver the years, I found myself forced to refine my views regarding business firms. Three lessons stand out. First, being "pro-business" is not the same as being "free-market." Second, regulation, which presumably works "against" business, goes hand-in-hand with special privileges and artificial protections "for" business. Third, the phenomenon of active and routine collusion between business and government made the business world seem less than the pure and benevolent social agent I once perceived. In short, I began to recognize that the concept of "the corporate welfare state" goes a long way to describe some of the problems we observe in the complex nexus between the market sector and the government sector. All too often, businesses lobby government for special privileges they would not have in a true, free market.
Emphasis added. That's what Government Affairs departments are for, though for-profits aren't the only organizations that have them. Non-profits have them too, so they can reduce their workloads by having the government take over some of their tasks (while continuing to reap the same level of donations, grants, etc. - not realizing that they're likely to get more "I gave at the office" answers as a result).
"Eternal viligilence is the price of freedom." I want to try this guy out. If he does prove to be a bad bet for Freedom, we need to be ready to go apes**t.
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