“Corporatist System
But BP’s defenders and statist critics both have it wrong. This is not the story of a well-meaning or negligent firm operating in the free market. Negligent or not, BP is a player in a corporatist system that for generations has featured a close relationship between government and major business firms. (It wouldn’t have surprised Adam Smith.) Prominent companies have always been influential at all levels of government — and no industry more so than oil, which has long been a top concern of the national policy elite, most particularly the foreign-policy establishment. Continue reading