Corporatism

The Great Sugar Robbery Continues

by James Bovard November 1, 2015

Seventeen years ago, The Future of Freedom Foundation published my piece “The Great Sugar Shaft.” That article hammered federal sugar policy as one of the most brazen interventionist failures in American history. Unfortunately, the political looting of sugar consumers and food producers continues unabated. Federal price supports and import quotas combine to drive U.S. sugar prices far above the ...

Crony Capitalism the Cause of Society’s Problems

by Richard M. Ebeling September 28, 2015

Since the economic downturn of 2008, the critics of capitalism have redoubled their efforts to persuade the American people and many others around the world that the system of individual freedom and free enterprise has failed. These critics have insisted that it is unbridled capitalism, set lose on the world, which is the source of all of our personal and ...

The State’s Exploitation of the Common Man

by Bart Frazier June 15, 2015

One of the oldest complaints coming from the Left is that the business world exploits the common man. The Democrat Party uses it as a veritable rallying cry, with its candidates promising to protect the helpless lower classes from the predations of corporations and international conglomerates. As they say, the game is rigged. They are correct, but not in ...

Americans See Big Corruption in Big Business

by Richard M. Ebeling March 16, 2015

A recently released report on the degree of confidence that Americans have in the country’s leading political and economic institutions showed that few of these institutions are held in high regard by the public. The survey was conducted by NORC, a respected research organization at the University of Chicago. It was found that only 11 percent of those asked expressed ...

Smedley Butler and the Racket That Is War

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2014

From 1898 to 1931, Smedley Darlington Butler was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. By the time he retired he had achieved what was then the Corps’s highest rank, major general, and by the time he died in 1940, at 58, he had more decorations, including two medals of honor, than any other Marine. During his years in ...

Free Market Capitalism vs. Crony Capitalism

by Richard M. Ebeling July 14, 2014

In the minds of many people around the world, including in the United States, the term “capitalism” carries the idea of unfairness, exploitation, undeserved privilege and power, and immoral profit making. What is often difficult to get people to understand is that this misplaced conception of “capitalism” has nothing to do with real free markets and economic liberty, and ...

Lincoln-Worship Overlays the Corporatist Agenda

by Kevin Carson March 1, 2014

Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream — and How We Can Do It Again by Rich Lowry (HarperCollins 2013), 390 pages. One of the central themes in James Scott’s Seeing Like a State is the ideology he calls “authoritarian high modernism”: It is best conceived as a strong (one might even say muscle-bound) version of ...

Corporatism as Theory and Practice

by Joseph R. Stromberg February 1, 2014

When I first discovered corporatism, about 1966, it was not exactly a household word. The term was known only to specialists, who mostly looked for it in the recent (pre–1945) past. Between about 1960 and the early 1970s, a few New Left and libertarian scholars stirred up greater (but still quite small) interest in this arcane term. My original ...

TGIF: Will 2016 Be a Good Year for the Corporate State?

by Sheldon Richman December 13, 2013

If you share my belief that the major obstacle to the free society is the national-security/corporate state, 2016 is shaping up to be a year of apprehension. The Wall Streeters, who are among the biggest advocates of partnership between big government and big business, are looking forward to a presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie, a contest ...

Another Day, Another Bailout

by Tim Kelly March 28, 2013

Well, the Cypriot banking crisis has been “resolved.” It is being reported that the government in Nicosia has agreed to a deal with the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) lenders. The deal involves a large loan from the European Central Bank (ECB), the imposition of austerity measures and capital controls, and the restructuring of the country’s ...

Obama’s “No Fly” List for FedEx and UPS

by Wendy McElroy March 22, 2013

The Obama administration is notorious for crony capitalism, through which big businesses reap huge riches by virtue of their cozy association with government. Big oil, big car companies, big agrobusinesses, big banks, and big drug corporations are among the legally privileged cronies who are profiting at the expense of nonprivileged competitors and of customers who pay higher prices. Now the ...

Government Dependency and Corporatist America

by Tim Kelly September 26, 2012

Mitt Romney’s comment that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes and therefore are not likely to respond positively to his stated opposition to tax increases has been called a “gaffe.” This reminds me of Michael Kinsley’s quip: “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.” Romney was only half right, ...