From his review of Robert Reich's new book, Supercapitalism:
This is a critically important point for people to get -- and one that many good thinking souls don't yet agree with. It's related to an answer I gave to a great question by Jon Zittrain at the Corruption vAlpha lecture. As I said there, we need to understand the nature of the corporation -- to make money -- and come to love it, and yet, to keep it in its proper place, just as you can love a tiger, but know that it's not the sort of thing that should play with your kid. (Here's the question and answer). Corporations are not more efficient governments. They are instead increasingly efficient money making machines. And while there's nothing at all wrong with money making machines -- indeed, wealth and growth depends upon them -- there is something fundamentally wrong with trusting these machines to restrain the drive for profits in the name of doing the right thing. The cushion that enabled that in the past (relatively limited competition) is gone. The job of GM is even more now to make money for GM.
It's part of the problem with our modern political discourse that it's somehow become anti-corporate, or anti-capitalist, to say that we should not force corporations to become mini-welfare states and regulatory agencies unto themselves. They should not be responsible for the financing and provision of health care, nor, on a case-by-case basis, the fight against global warming. Instead, the government should construct fair and equal rules within which these priorities are protected, and then all the various corporations should be able to fight to make a profit.
