Most if not all of [the demonstrators] likely favor a big expansion of government, but in light of our political-economic history, that would be precisely the wrong way to go because it would further empower the same coercive bureaucracy that gave us this crisis. Putting new people in charge won’t alter that fact that the bureaucracy wields powers that should not exist.

What the protesters miss is that corporate power is derived from government power – it’s the most dangerous derivative. Without State power no bank (or collection of them) could set the economy on a balsawood platform of inflated currency and cheap credit, creating the conditions for recession and long-term unemployment; nor could it stick taxpayers with the cost of bad investments. Such mischief requires a central bank and congressional power to compel the taxpayers. Washington and Wall Street need each other. They don’t agree on everything, but their public feuds should not mislead anyone into thinking they are adversaries. They are in cahoots, dependent on a system that constrains regular people’s honest economic activities and benefits an exploitative elite.

. . . Government power ultimately will be influenced and controlled by those the occupiers despise. So, protesters, rail against Wall Street. But rail, too, against its indispensable partner – government, with its unique legal power to wield aggressive force – and realize that the genuine antipode of the system you oppose is the freed market. [Emphasis added]

— Sheldon Richman, “Occupying Wall Street”, The Freeman Online