Free Republic

“The most spectacular period of economic growth in our history is over,” they wrote, because “government is destroying two vital instruments of that growth—the system of contract rights and the large corporation.”1 Constitutional and electoral constraints on political plunder have proven ineffective, Jensen and Meckling wrote, as the courts, politicians, and regulators have revoked or attenuated property and contract rights and have attacked freedom of association as well, “especially in the civil rights arena.”2 With regard to the stock market, Jensen and Meckling forecast that because of the instability of property rights caused by government intervention, investors have become much...