For the better part of a century, the left has been waging a slow, methodical battle for control of the institutions of Western civilization. During most of that time, "business" - and American Big Business, in particular - remained the last redoubt for those who believed in free people, free markets, and the criticality of private property. Over the past two decades, however, that has changed, and the left has taken its long march to the last remaining non-leftist institution.
Over the course of the last two years or so, a small handful of politicians on the right - Senators Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and Josh Hawley, to name three - have begun to sense that something is wrong with American business and have sought to identify the problem and offer solutions to rectify it. While the attention of high-profile politicians to the issue is welcome, to date the solutions they have proposed are inadequate, for a variety of reasons, including a failure to grasp the scope of the problem, failure to understand the mechanisms of corporate governance, and an overreliance on state-imposed, top-down solutions.