Giant firms’ efficiency is a vestigial reputation masking political self-preservation.

Evidence

In 1943, Henry Simons stated, “The efficiency of gigantic corporations is usually a vestigial reputation earned during early, rapid growth—a memory of youth rather than an attribute of maturity. Grown large, they become essentially political bodies, run by lawyers, bankers, and specialized politicians, and persisting mainly to preserve the power of control groups and to reward unnaturally an admittedly rare talent for holding together enterprise aggregations which ought to collapse from excessive size” (1948, 246). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1199

Categorization

• XREF: Early Chicago-school suspicion of corporate gigantism connects to the reader’s interest in how neoliberalism diverged from laissez-faire boosterism. — connects to: Industry self-regulation protects the firms rather than the public.; The political facade’s illusion sustains the very individuals who criticise it.
• CANDY: A quotable zinger about huge corporations as ‘political bodies run by lawyers, bankers, and specialized politicians’ good for a dinner-party line.

Broader Connections

• Industry self-regulation protects the firms rather than the public. #corroborates (0.82)
• The political facade’s illusion sustains the very individuals who criticise it. #expands (0.78)