… is from page 41 of Richard Epstein’s magisterial 2014 book, The Classical Liberal Constitution:
If the common-law lawyers were right to worry about the dominant position of a common carrier, modern scholars, both within and beyond the legal profession, should not be indifferent to the still greater power that lies in the hands of state regulators in the modern administrative state.
DBx: Yes. And, indeed, even if the common-law lawyers were not right to worry about the dominant position of a common carrier – not right, that is, when that common carrier is privately owned and there are no government-erected barriers to entry into that carrier’s market – modern scholars, and citizens too, should nevertheless still fear the immense power “that lies in the hands of state regulators in the modern administrative state.”
