Comment by defgeneric

Again, Tabarrok is wrong. It's a mistake to think these minor differences in the process imply something else is going on, and the previous instances he notes (pharma, railroads) did not have the essential factor that explains much of what is happening right now: a cheap, low cost alternative that threatens to erode margins with no end in sight save for regulatory intervention. Nevermind the error in the logic (that in the past regulatory capture happened in the shadows, therefore this must not be regulatory capture), the bigger error is in Tabarrok's judgment, his failure to recognize what's going on.