Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.

• Author: Smith, Fred I., Jr.
• Position: Book review

Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State

Ralph Nader

New York: Nation Books, 2014, 224 pp.

Ralph Nader's new book, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State, seeks to craft a left-right alliance capable of challenging corporate welfare. Given the media's focus on cronyism and the ire over continued bipartisan support of special favors to special interests, the book is timely. America, as James DeLong has noted, is becoming a "special interest state," and the time may well be right to restore the constitutional focus on the "general welfare of the electorate."

Nader, sadly, does not address the roles played by the full array of special interests groups, concentrating only on business. Rather than using the "special interest state" language of DeLong, Nader talks only of "corporatism." But many other labels have been suggested: cronyism, crony capitalism, crony socialism (coined by Cato Institute President John Allison), and crony statism (the term preferred by Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist). Whatever label it goes by, it should end.

Economic subsidies or competitor-crippling regulations not only weaken our economy, they also undermine the rule of law and threaten the moral basis of capitalism. Profit-side capitalism and loss-side socialism merit strong disapproval from both left and right, and perhaps a successful joint effort against corporate welfare might encourage a broader effort against subsidies to other interest groups. That possibility offers some hope that Nader's appeal might have a bright future.

That appeal, however, is made less likely by Nader's anti-business views. He consistently places most blame for crony socialism on corporations, refusing to see the role often played by ideological groups and governmental agencies. Moreover, his critique of corporate welfare soon expands into a general attack on the corporation. In Nader's view, corporations are rapacious institutions, seeking only to maximize their power to the detriment of consumers and the citizenry. But the modern corporation evolved from the voluntary, bilateral exchange arrangements championed by Adam Smith. The corporation is simply a more complex array of multilateral, voluntary exchanges. It's true that corporations--like earlier economic arrangements--too often fall into cronyism. Still, the power of even the largest firm is disciplined by competition and pales in comparison to that of Leviathan.

Nader's argument that Adam Smith himself was critical of the "corporation" fails to note that his ire was directed at the East India "Corporation," more a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) than a modern firm. Few conservatives view GSEs as examples of the free market. It is worth noting that, until the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844, all joint stock companies in Great Britain required a special charter from the crown. Until general incorporation statutes, the ability to form a corporation was an elite privilege.

In his most helpful chapter, Nader outlines the difficulties that must be overcome to realize a left-right alliance. I've participated in such coalitions and found his list insightful. His first point is that ideologues are passionate and find it difficult to work with those holding conflicting priorities. Moreover, right/left group leaders will likely face internal resistance to any cooperation with "the other side." Also, strange-bedfellow alliances are complex and fragile, thus risky. Time is needed to develop the necessary...