Robert Higgs in 1997 wrote one of the best and most important papers on the Great Depression called “Regime Uncertainty,” and it explained one of the reasons that long-term private investment stayed low throughout the 1930s. The Roosevelt administration, with its anti-business rhetoric and policies that stifled investment, created a hostile atmosphere for business development, and that meant high unemployment — which the New Dealers and their allies blamed (naturally) on business.

Today, we have the Return of Regime Uncertainty or Regime Uncertainty, Part II. Congressional committees led by leftists such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are hauling CEOs before them to engage in the usual berating of business. Obama has ratcheted up his anti-business rhetoric and new threats come from Washington every day. The New York Times editorial page is joining in the anti-business fest (Maureen Dowd already has called for “show trials” of business executives.)It only will get worse. In two years, the Democrats will have a supermajority in the Senate and even a greater majority in the House. While the Republicans are getting what they deserve, no doubt a hard-left government, which is what we will have, is going to make FDR’s hatred of business seem to be a lovefest. Nor will this change. The Democrats are going to re-write a lot of the rules on elections and everything else in order to ensure that they are a permanent majority, like they are in places like Maryland.

As I have written elsewhere, to paraphrase Sir Edward Grey, the lamps are going out all over the United States, and they will not be lit again in my lifetime. Congress and the president are determined to control the economy and will do what they can to grab and hold power into the future. Their efforts will fail economically speaking, but will be wild political successes, and that is all that matters to the DC crowd.