The kinds of rhetoric CCC uses to influence EU policy bears a striking resemblance to the populist rhetoric that was so successful in getting US voters to demand the privatization/dismantling of the public regulatory state. In essence it boils down to arguing that Brussels, like Washington DC, shouldn’t have the power to regulate businesses on behalf of its citizens because it should be left to consumers to make those decisions on their own.

This sort of rhetoric presents itself as being about empowering the individual, but when the individual is then free to choose from options that are harmful to important things like public health or the environment, are they really better-served when consumers making those retail choices in an unregulated business environment causes serious problems? Is that a sufficient reason for non-regulation of polluting industry, or against the right of the EU to regulate business on behalf of its citizenry?

When you consider that populist appeals to rugged individualism and non-regulation have consistently led to markets with glaring externalities and monopolism where they have been applied, it looks very much like when Koch dollars are spent to influence politics it’s entirely an exercise in subverting the ability of nations to regulate business that would much rather not be regulated no matter how harmful its externalities might be.