ABSTRACT

Such a conception is characteristic of much of the currently influen­ tial schools of capture and public choice theory in which the operation of political bargaining results in both the creation of regulatory re­ gimes and their capture by regulated industries; again, the dark world of politics sullies the purity of markets.4 Finally, this opposi­ tion of regulation to markets is probably the most characteristic popular usage of the term; to quote no less elevated a source than Rupert Murdoch, 'Socialism is alive and well and living in regula­ tory agencies ... The growth of regulation has given enormous control to governm ent... Socialism has effectively reinvented itself.'5