RE WHERE WE STAND

DK has a great post on this topic.

Re the rise of corporations, he makes some telling remarks, especially about the Reconstruction era and after, blaming mainly the Republicans for monopolistic tendencies, which the Congress, and then the Court, only belatedly reined in, in the 20th century; and which the Republicans are said to be unwinding recently.

I wonder whether, though, that the Democrats did not also contribute mightily to this corporatist development, over a long period of time, both before and after The Civil War, through  commercial internationalism, imperialism, as well as the evangelism, involved in free trade; and in the view, mid and later 19th Century and after, that international trade worked a peace creating role, call it Cobdenism for short.

Liberal internationalism, also morphed into human rights activism, both successively playing into the hands of corporatist globalist tendencies already well established.

Certainly the Democratic Presidents have lately not been shy to promote globalist corporatist agendas, eg NAFTA, WTO, ETC.
Faux has a nice discussion of Clinton's role here. The problem, for me, re Faux, is that he is a socialist, not my cup of tea; his book, The Global Class War, nevertheless, good to read.

The Republicans became free traders in around 1930, I believe; 

maybe I exaggerate this aspect of American politics.

I believe that this ' liberal internationalism ', liberal international economic order,  became our vital center bipartisan Achilles Heel, certainly since WWII.