Another point -- sometimes, the insiders would benefit from having the rules of their game changed, as part of broad reforms, to make it less attractive. They'd exploit their capital (intellectual, reputational, political, or financial) to play a different game, while benefiting from the broad reforms.

A non-debased economic thinker would also give weight to some hard-to-quantify benefits: The value a person places on the good of others, and of having done good.

The above suggests that an enlightened, rational group of insiders should often see "an attack on their business" as a good thing.

And yet another, less related, point -- I am confident that business leaders often inadvertently regard (1) the effect on their business of a general prohibition against something they find profitable as equivalent to (2) the effect of a unilateral relinquishment.

Think of a change that raises production costs in a competitive market. Case (1): with zero price elasticity, zero effect; with moderate price elasticity, a moderate effect. Case (2): the business is uncompetitive, and fails.

Treating case (1) as if it were case (2) -- and there must surely be at least a tendency to do so -- greatly increases the perceived incentives of businesses to oppose virtually all policies that constrain their actions in the public interest.

If this point were more widely understood, the push and pull of politics would produce better results and the world would be a better place.
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I seem to be in a moral-philosophical mood again.

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.