You must choose a side. Either big government or big business. This is a common sentiment, and it is dangerously wrong.

After the recent midterm election, the media proclaimed the Republican victory a win for big business. They said because Republicans oppose big government and government regulation, they must support big business.

What these political commentators miss is that big government and big business go hand-in-hand. We shouldn’t want either. Paradoxically, the best way to limit the corruption of big business is to make the government, which regulates big business, weaker and smaller.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose Friedman, explained that government regulations of businesses are almost always self-defeating. They help big businesses strengthen their monopolies. To support their argument, the Friedmans cite the failure of government regulation to curb the famous railroad monopolies of the late 19th century.

Put yourself in the position of those who wanted government to regulate those railroad tycoons. The massive companies had monopolies in certain regions and could charge unfair prices for their services. Consumers were right to be upset at big businesses.

Unfortunately, these consumers addressed their legitimate grievances in the wrong way.

They demanded that the government start regulating the railroad companies. After plenty of campaigning and lobbying, the government gave in and created the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The big railroad companies were as happy as the well-intentioned reformers, who despised the railroad companies.

Why? The infant ICC needed administrators. The reformers didn’t know enough about railroads to run the ICC. Plus, they had other social ills to protest. So who was left to run the ICC? People who had once worked for the railroad companies and knew how the industry operated.

Not only were these railroad-tycoon sympathizers the only ones qualified to run the ICC, they were guaranteed high positions in the ICC as well because the tycoons had the most money and incentives to make sure they got the candidates they wanted in office.

So while the reformers moved on to their next protest movement, the railroad tycoons quietly filled the ICC with their own former employees and sympathizers. These new administrators used government regulation to stifle competition and raise profits for the big businesses that kept them in office.

The government grew and with it grew the big railroad companies.

The same principle holds for almost all government reforms intended to curb big business monopolies. The people who have the means and incentive to manage that reform are the people backed by big business, which are supposed to be regulated. Rather than hurting big businesses, government regulation winds up hurting both the consumers and the small businesses trying to compete with the big businesses.

When big insurance lobbyists write oppressively complicated laws like ObamaCare, they make it so small insurance companies can’t meet all the requirements. The small insurance companies go under, and the big, competition-free insurance companies celebrate their monopolies by hiking up prices some more.

So, if (and that is a big “if”) the elected Republicans stand by their platform, the recent election is not a win for big business. It’s a win for small business and consumers and a loss for big government and big business.

Elliot Polsky can be reached at pols4319@stthomas.edu.