Even though this administration has done a great many things to help business over the last 3 plus years, President Obama is criticized angrily by Republicans, some members of the business community, and even some Democrats for not being "friendly enough" to business. At the same time, coming from the left, Bill Scher stirred up a lot of controversy among progressives when he a wrote a guest editorial for the NYT called How Liberals Win, arguing in it that liberals could not win social progress without working in some regards with elements of the business community. Somewhere between these two controversies is a fascinating story about the future of business in American politics.

The business community itself is fundamentally split between (a) the big incumbent companies who have, in industry after industry, come to dominate the marketplace, and whose lobbyists have an iron grip on the levers of power in the federal government; and (b) up and coming entrepreneurs and struggling small businesses who are trying to gain traction and build successful enterprises in the face of the most challenging economic circumstances in many decades.

On the first side, you have either one or just a few companies controlling overwhelming amounts of the markets they are in: in banking, retail, electronics, office supplies, oil, coal, natural gas, book sales, agribusiness and food products, health insurance, cigarettes, fast food, media, several kinds of technology products, defense and aeronautics, beer, and a wide array of other areas a half dozen or less companies control over 50% of the market.

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