In an essay on the past and present positions of those who advocate big government, I write,

The view that only large industrial enterprises matter seems preposterous now. If Galbraith had been right, then the industrial structure of the 1960’s would still exist today. Instead of what Alvin Toffler in 1980 called the “third wave,” a Galbraithian economy would still be dominated by automobile and steel manufacturing. Galbraith would never have predicted Wal-Mart, Federal Express, Apple, Microsoft, eBay or Amazon, much less the tens of thousands of less spectacular entrepreneurial enterprises that have had a large cumulative impact on our economy.

On the crusader tradition of Ralph Nader and Elliot Spitzer, I write

If business and war had to be conducted perfectly to be conducted at all, then we would have not have any private enterprise in our economy and we would not have won a single war in our history.

For Discussion. How can one distinguish between constructive calls for reform from purely antagonistic attacks that undermine our economy?