Politics & Power Quote by Dan Glickman

Nostalgia gets waved off in the first sentence, but it still does important work here. Glickman isn’t just saying “the past is gone”; he’s closing the door on restoration politics - the perennial promise that deregulation, consolidation, or some imagined return to “simpler” markets will fix what ails the economy. That upfront concession positions him as pragmatic rather than utopian, a politician trying to sound like an adult in a room full of talking points.

Then he pivots to a distinctly American compromise: not heavy-handed control, but refereeing. “Make sure that the pricing is fair” is deliberately elastic language. It implies the market remains the engine, yet admits markets don’t self-correct when power concentrates. The real target is in the next clause: monopolies. In farm and food policy - Glickman’s home terrain as former Secretary of Agriculture - consolidation isn’t theoretical. It shows up in seed patents, meatpacking concentration, and the way a handful of buyers can set terms for everyone else. “Fair pricing” becomes code for protecting producers and consumers from a rigged game.

The line about “chance to compete fairly” reveals the quote’s rhetorical tension: it champions competition while acknowledging that competition doesn’t happen naturally; it has to be manufactured by rules, enforcement, and sometimes trust-busting. The verbal stumble (“so that people don’t have a chance to compete fairly”) reads like a slip, but the intent is clear: without antitrust muscle, “competition” becomes branding for domination. Glickman’s subtext is a warning dressed as moderation: you can’t rewind history, but you can decide whether the next economy is policed or captured.