Big business vs. free markets

Charles Johnson writing for the Freeman says,

British Petroleum, as a corporation, exists because governments created it – with a monopoly concession from the Shah of Iran to a company owned by the government of the United Kingdom. Like all other Big Oil companies, BP extracts the oil it sells mainly from government-controlled land and sea, through monopoly concessions, bureaucratic bidding processes, and politically granted leases. It uses government protection, liability caps, and escrow funds to insulate their business from paying the economic and social costs of their actions. In a freed market BP’s concentrated wealth and reckless business model would not exist.

Being in favor of free markets does not make you an advocate for big business. In many respects, it makes you just the opposite.

It's nice to see someone debunking the ever-present media insistence that pure capitalism caused the oil spill, and now we need the government to save us.