the RBOCS are coming!

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 1995 17:22:53 -0800
To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber)
From: Richard J Solomon  <rjs () farnsworth mit edu>
Reply-To:


In our forthcoming book --  The Gordian Knot  -- we* describe how J. P.
Morgan ensconced all the feuding magnates (Vanderbilts, Forbes, Goulds, &
lesser lights) on his boat in 1885 in Long Island Sound, and refused to let
them off until they settled the railroad/telegraph (19th Century
 convergence ) wars. One of the results was the formation of AT&T to
counterbalance Gould s rapacious Western Union. But less than 4 years later
the deals fell apart and the Feds had to form the ICC to keep these turkeys
from eating each other for lunch. Infrastructure was too important for mere
robber barons.


This pattern of deal making, and deal failure, repeated itself every
quarter century or so, each time yielding greater and tighter governmental
regulation than before; the deals never held and the greedy just got more
vicious, shooting themselves in the foot, not to mention squishing the much
maligned  public weal.


The real capitalist wave that the crystal gazers like to  deny is known in
economic circles as Kontratieff long-waves. Look it up. Start with
Schumpeter s  Business Cycles.  Stalin murdered Kontratieff for suggesting
that Communism, too, must follow the damned capitalist sinusoidal waves of
history. Schumpeter had to escape the Nazis. So it goes with ideologues.
Perhaps the  Third Wave  is just another sinusoidal ripple. It might even
be an hysterisis loop.


So Howard Baker is the new J. P. Morgan? I thought Wiley was angling for
the position. Maybe he doesn t have a big enough boat.


And how long with this deal last?


Richard


* Russell Neuman, Lee McKnight, Richard Solomon, MIT Press, 1995.


(releasable for distribution if you want)