We delude ourselves with the beliefs that the establish order suffers from only from policy or style defects, and that the new leadership or legislat… - Butler D. Shaffer

As the creators of sophisticated technologies, we have made ourselves increasingly machine-like; robotic servants of institutional systems we have been conditioned to revere, whose purposes we neither understand nor control, and of which we are afraid to ask questions. Our corporate-state world plunders, enslaves, controls and destroys us, all in the name of advancing our liberty and material well-being. Most of us are dominated by an unfocused fear of uncertainty, a longing for the security of emptiness.

The failure of the voluntary methods—whether in the form of codes of ethics or appeals to business ‘cooperation’—to effectively restrain such competitive conditions as price reduction, aggressive sales promotions, and challenges to a competitor's existing markets and clientele caused business leaders to turn to political methods to accomplish their objectives. Recalling Mancur Olson's analysis, where large groups are involved, ‘coercion’ or some other ‘special device’ is necessary to cause individuals to conform their behavior to what is in the interests of the group. It was recognized that the lack of effective means for enforcing restrictive agreements in the marketplace could be overcome by having trade practice standards enforced by political agencies that possessed the requisite coercive machinery.

Firms with established market positions wanted to reduce the impact of such competition and employed voluntary methods (such as mergers, pooling, trade association ‘codes of ethics,’ and other agreements) in efforts to stabilize competitive relationships. When such voluntary means failed due to lack of effective enforcement, influential corporate leaders, having found a condition of unrestrained competition and decision-making unacceptable to their interests, helped promote the enactment of legal restraints upon trade practices.