I did not, however, say much about the third, which is in some ways even more fundamental and representative of Sanders’ general economic and political philosophy. The basic idea is this. If individuals or small groups are able to accumulate power, both the democratic and capitalist processes are short circuited. Consider this. Capitalism properly understood is an anti-business system. Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, wrote:

Smith thus wants a method of preventing firms from having the power to succeed in these endeavors. His answer: competition. Make sure there are enough businesses in a particular industry to not only make it difficult for them to collude (it’s harder to get 100 people to agree on something than two), but also to ensure that entrepreneurs have to assume that if they don’t make the best deal possible for their customers, someone else will. Then they are forced to please their clientele if they want to get rich. This is the Invisible Hand: entrepreneurs acting in their own self interest inadvertently promote the self interest of others. But only if there is sufficient competition.

This appears to be a key issue for the Sanders campaign. He has said repeatedly that too big to fail is too big to exist (Too Big To Fail). And while he has been most vocal in this regard with respect to the financial sector, Sanders seems to also believe that this is a key problem in sectors like pharmaceuticals (Fighting to Lower Prescription Drug Prices), internet providers (Bernie Sanders Asks FCC to Investigate Cable and Broadband Prices), and the media (Bernie Sanders on why Big Media Shouldn’t Get Bigger). At least on the surface, Sanders’ policies appear to be closely in line with what was most important to Adam Smith!