Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

At some point in the regulatory process, the business being regulated decides that the regulator – federal, state or municipal – exerts such control over the business or property that “ownership” reverts from the nominal owner to the regulator. At this point, the business begins to look for the exit sign. Karl Marx and his students, among them “A” student V. I. Lenin, may have thought it was necessary for the proletariat to wrest ownership from capitalists so that their ill-conceived profits might revert to the proletariat. That is the central doctrine of The Communist Manifesto, with its stirring opening: “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains, and a world to win.” Mr. Marx may have been a poor economist, but he was a superb ideological terrorist. It turns out the Marxists were wrong: It is not necessary for the proletariat  -- in reality, the fascist state -- to seize the means of production so they might “own” property and businesses o...