Progressivism and the Regulatory State

1. What To Do?
   1. Public Ownership--A Nonstarter
      1. Advocates
         1. Socialists--Workers' Control of Means of Production
         2. Populists--Democratic Control of Public-Service Institutions--The Post Office Analogy
      2. Problems
         1. Traditional Mistrust of Government
         2. A Mismatch of Power and Money
         3. Lack of a Tradition of Public Administration
      3. An Exception--Municipal Ownership--"Gas-and-Water Socialism"
   2. A Compromise--The Independent Regulatory Agency
      1. Examples
         1. State Public Service Commissions
         2. The Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)
      2. Conception
         1. Public Accountability for Private Monopolies
         2. Need for Flexibility, Broad Delegation of Legislative Powers
         3. Independence From Executive Control
      3. Development
         1. Regulation by Independent Experts
         2. Accomodation to Regulated Firms
            1. Protected Monopoly Status--The "Regulated Monopoly"
            2. Swapping Reasonable Rates for Reasonable Profits
   3. Restoring Competition--Antitrust
      1. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
      2. The Age of the Trust-Busters
         1. Theodore Roosevelt and the Bureau of Corporations (1903)
         2. William Howard Taft and the Breakup of Standard Oil and American Tobacco (1911)
         3. Institutionalizing Antitrust--Woodrow Wilson
            1. The Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
            2. The Federal Trade Commission (1914)--Antitrust as Regulation
   4. "Public Interest" Regulation
      1. The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
      2. Progressive-Era Environmentalism
         1. Resource Depletion and Environmental Conflict
         2. The Planning Ethos--Government Accommodation With Big Business
2. Consequences--Intended or Not
   1. Regulation as Government Cartel--The ICC
   2. Antitrust--Replacing Monopoly With Oligopoly
   3. Legal Sanction for Bigness--The U.S. Steel decision (1920)
   4. The Emerging "Corporate Commonwealth"