Obamacare, and the hundreds of waivers the administration continues to issue, represents a new form of corruption, as well as cronyism, that I believe was invented by the Obama administration. The idea is to pass a terrible piece of legislation, and then exempt your friends from it, so that only those without political influence have to suffer from the lousy statute you imposed on them.
So that is a very quick overview of the kinds of corporate cronyism that have emerged during the Obama administration. This private sector cronyism is, I think, much more damaging than the public sector cronyism of the 19th century. Why? Because it doesn’t just waste money, it distorts the entire private economy. It is notable that the era when traditional cronyism flourished was also the time when the United States experienced its most explosive economic growth.
This ought to be the theme of the campaign, but it probably won’t be, at least with any of the current candidates.
The most recent Reason magazine (the one after Rand’s Rocket Men issue) has got an expose’ on the biggest crony of them all – not too surprisingly, Warren Buffett. Its a good read.
I wish more people would dispense with the oxymoronic phrase “crony capitalism” as Rand does. As all us free market supporters know, capitalism privatizes capital markets and cronyism doesn’t, so they don’t belong in the same phrase any more than “protectionist” and “free trade” do.
Neo-Corporatism.
Well, not even that. There’s a difference between controlling production and dishing out what is produced.
Corporatism (in the Italian Fascist sense) placed control over the means of production in the hands of committees manned by representatives from government, labor, and the nominal owners of the means of production. It’s like crossing the NLRB with Obamacare.
Cronyism imply carries the centuries-old tradition of government officials using their office to take private goods and give them to their pals. Medieval rulers granted various monopolies and feudal tracts to cronies. Washington politicians give grants to political supporters. Arlington, TX raised its sales tax to give the money to the owners of the Texas Rangers so they can build a new ballpark. Communism being what it is, its cronyism went into the pockets of government/party officials and not the private sector.
“…so that only those without political influence have to suffer from the lousy statute you imposed on them.”
I’m hoping this little scheme will play a part of how / why the SCOTUS strikes it down. A law is for ALL of us or NONE of us. Would the President’s friends get waivers so they could buy and do drugs, or so they could drive 50 mph over the speed limit, or a thousand other analogies, based on a “WH Approved Waiver”?
This guy thinks, acts and works like a King or Emperor or Fascist Dictator.
I’m still waiting to see the fur fly over that GA hearing that says Obama is ineligible to ‘run’ for President and how the WH plans on dealing with it. Then again, dictators don’t fall under the same laws as the hoi poloi, so I guess he’ll just count GA’s votes from last time, for this time!
Perhaps a better term than cronie capitalism, would be PHONY CAPITALISM.
What we have not isn’t crony capitalism. It’s more like crony socialism.
“Capitalism”, depending on the speaker, can mean anything from “free market” to “feudalism”. On the whole a useless term. Cronyism is a much more useful term.