{"id":1233,"date":"2012-11-06T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2012-11-29T17:30:37","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T22:30:37","slug":"ending-crony-capitalism-can-help-heal-our-wounded-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/06\/ending-crony-capitalism-can-help-heal-our-wounded-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending Crony Capitalism Can Help Heal Our Wounded Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter who wins today\u2019s election, one thing is for certain:\u00a0 This country will remain deeply divided on the proper role of government.\u00a0\u00a0 While the debate has been healthy in many respects, it has also been equally damaging.\u00a0\u00a0 In many ways, the President-elect and his new Congress will greet tomorrow and find a wounded country.\u00a0\u00a0 With all the talk of the \u201cneed to compromise\u201d, \u201creaching across the aisle\u201d and giving \u201ceveryone a fair shot\u201d, the next President and Congress could do no better than to attack the biggest root cause of public acrimony: crony capitalism. \u00a0\u00a0In fact, to defeat crony capitalism, one can assemble a powerful coalition voting-block that defies simple \u201cleft\/right\u201d categorization.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before going any further, let\u2019s define \u201ccrony capitalism\u201d simply as \u201ccapitalism\u201d without a level playing field.<\/p>\n

Where capitalism results from two trading partners making each other better off through free and honest trade, crony capitalism tips the playing field to one party\u2019s favor. \u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s a regulation that forces the one party to trade with the other.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps it\u2019s a special tax treatment that makes viable an otherwise non-economic transaction.\u00a0\u00a0 Or possibly it\u2019s a single paragraph inserted into the tax code, one that applies only to a single company. \u00a0Favorably, of course.<\/p>\n

Crony capitalism amounts to a thumb on the scales of economic justice. \u00a0 \u00a0But the damage doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A friend of mine recently recalled the profound words of Henry Hazlitt, from his classic book, \u201cEconomics in One Lesson<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In \u201cthe immediate\u201d, the favored group gets their benefit.\u00a0\u00a0 And as we shall see, the \u201clonger effects\u201d of this system are devastating to the very character of the country itself.<\/p>\n

Continue reading at Forbes Opinions…<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No matter who wins today\u2019s election, one thing is for certain:\u00a0 This country will remain deeply divided on the proper role of government.\u00a0\u00a0 While the debate has been healthy in many respects, it has also been equally damaging.\u00a0\u00a0 In many ways, the President-elect and his new Congress will greet tomorrow and find a wounded country.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilsocietytrust.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}