Quote of the Day

From Kevin Drum, commenting on research presented in Washington Monthly regarding the relationship between consolidation and job creation (or lack thereof).

One of the pathologies of modern conservatism — a pathology that's shared more often than I'd like by mainstream liberals — is that they're pro-business, not pro-free market. The difference is critical. Pro-business means passing laws that your business pals like, and as economists since Adam Smith have observed, what businessmen mostly like is lack of competition. The operation of a true free market, conversely, depends crucially on competition and plenty of it. And just as crucially, that requires government intervention to prevent a few behemoths from taking over every sector of the economy. Keeping a free market free takes a lot of work.

The whole post is interesting, as is the piece it is based on. Read it and remind your pro-market friends what they really mean.