crony capitalism

The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism

by Adrian Wooldridge  · 7 Apr 2026  · 342pp  · 129,097 words

experience with populism has been disappointing even for populists. During his first term Trump failed to fulfil his promise to build a wall or dismantle crony capitalism but succeeded in providing tax cuts for billionaires. Boris Johnson not only failed to deliver on his promise to ‘level up’ the country but proved

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of and 58–9 Axis of Autocracy and 174 Bolsheviks and 88 civilized society and 316 corporations see corporations creative destruction xxiii, 206, 245, 260 crony capitalism xii dark side of, leaders of liberalism concern about 201–2 debate, freedom of and 214–16 globalization and 153 information capitalism xii, xxii, 202

The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up

by Xavier Cirera and William Francis Maloney  · 14 Jun 2017  · 373pp  · 109,964 words

political institutions protect secure property rights, democratic pluralism, open markets, consumers, and so on. Alternatively, bad economic and political institutions protect oligarchies, single-party systems, crony capitalism, nepotism, dysfunctional judiciaries, rampant corruption, and so on. In general, poor countries are overwhelmed with bad institutions, while prosperous countries are filled with good ones

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

by James Crabtree  · 2 Jul 2018  · 442pp  · 130,526 words

intervention, the gap between India’s rich and the rest will keep widening. The rise of the super-rich then ties into a second issue: crony capitalism, meaning collusion between political and business elites to capture valuable public resources for themselves. India’s old system of central planning and state controls created

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, overburdened bureaucrats, judges, and regulators failed to set boundaries within which the market could develop. But often they were indeed corrupt, and many extravagantly so. Crony capitalism infiltrated almost every area of national life. There were furors over mining rights and land allocation and public food distribution schemes. Cash-for-access scandals

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has never been more critical. Will India’s Gilded Age blossom into a Progressive Era of its own, in which the perils of inequality and crony capitalism are left decisively behind? Or will the excesses of the last decade gradually reemerge, presaging a future scarred by graft and deformed by inequality; a

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of valuable coal and telecoms licenses on the cheap. Almost all involved allegations of collusion among politicians, bureaucrats, and business titans—the basic definition of crony capitalism.20 When we met in 2014, Sanyal was again trying to become a member of parliament in south Mumbai, standing, again unsuccessfully, for the new

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on the face of Mumbai, but you see what people say about it,” she explained. “It’s not good for the country when you have crony capitalism of that nature.” A New Gilded Age Speaking in 1916, Mohandas Gandhi warned that India faced a pernicious new kind of commercialism. “Western nations are

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’s ceaselessly acquisitive instincts, even as he stood unchallenged “upon the pinnacle of moneyed magnificence in America.”28 The idea that India’s problems of crony capitalism echoed those of America’s was one I heard later from economist Raghuram Rajan, by then the head of the country’s central bank. Rajan

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the normal remit of his job, including one delivered about a year after he joined the RBI, laying out “a hypothesis on the persistence of crony capitalism.”29 India’s public services were threadbare, he argued. Social welfare programs meant to help the poor worked badly. State schools and hospitals were typically

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of a long-term leasing arrangement. But this did little to stop critics attacking a perceived coziness between the politician who so often railed against crony capitalism and the tycoon whose businesses had blossomed on his watch. There was controversy too about the large expanse of land onto which our plane touched

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of India’s more controversial business empires. Guha Thakurta made his name taking on the Ambani brothers in a controversial 2014 book called Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis, which detailed the fierce disputes between the two men’s respective energy businesses following their 2005 divorce. In the book he laid

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reaped excessive profits in ways that reminded him of earlier eras in the United States. Long before he coauthored his 2011 Financial Times article on crony capitalism—the one that began my own thinking on the subject of inequality and corruption—Sinha wrote an essay in the weekly Indian magazine Outlook comparing

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tended to be most connected to the global economy, and which were also the most competitive and least corrupt. Finally, and most troublingly, there was crony capitalism: the sectors dominated by the Bollygarchs, most of whom enjoyed deep connections with the state. A fierce battle was under way between them, Sinha said

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? Has Adani taken away land and not developed anything?”54 Still, scrutiny of the two men’s friendship only increased as India’s worries about crony capitalism grew. Shares in Adani’s own companies rose especially rapidly in the year prior to Modi’s election as prime minister, with some more than

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from bribery and vote buying to racketeering and nepotism. But in India, as in other emerging markets, what mattered was the rise of a new crony capitalism—defined by political scientist Minxin Pei as “collusion among elites”—and the big-ticket graft that went with it.23 The sight of politicians, bureaucrats

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made Jayalalithaa’s cult-like status seem odder, as if they somehow left the place more vulnerable to demagoguery, and the peculiar southern variant of crony capitalism that went along with it. Both autocrat and recluse, Jayalalithaa by then almost never appeared in public. But in Chennai she was inescapable, staring out

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brutality. But she was also a complex and in many ways admirable figure, as well as one whose ruling style illustrated the rich variety of crony capitalism found across India. Her story resonated with the public for its cinematic quality, from the glamour of her film stardom to the determination of her

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state’s economic record, or indeed causing the kind of blockbuster scandals that in time brought New Delhi grinding to a halt. This style of crony capitalism distinguished India’s five prosperous southern states—Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh—from the laggards of the north. Of these, all except

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measure. But it was Andhra Pradesh, with its sophisticated patronage-based politics and billionaire Andhrapreneur tycoons, that represented perhaps India’s most refined form of crony capitalism, and one whose sheer artistry acted as a model that others would soon go on to follow. How to Be a Crony Capitalist Hyderabad, capital

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imports, like coal or iron ore, or to rig the terms of public-private partnership contracts.10 “All of this was the worst form of crony capitalism,” as Jayant Sinha, by then a junior minister in India’s Ministry of Finance under Narendra Modi’s government, put it to me in 2015

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financial crisis, he published a paper explaining why countries with “relationship-based systems” of investment, like Malaysia and Thailand—meaning those that suffered from rampant crony capitalism—were especially prone to financial collapse.13 Then, at the International Monetary Fund, where he was made the youngest-ever head of the research department

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was the right thing, this policy has produced collateral damage,” wrote Luigi Zingales, a coauthor and colleague at Chicago, suggesting that Rajan’s battle against crony capitalism had been in some way responsible for his departure, and blaming “those Indian oligarchs who had enjoyed easy credit.”25 Rajan’s habit of giving

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stage after the midpoint of this century. Yet until it grapples with the three challenges outlined in this book—inequality and the new super-rich, crony capitalism, and the travails of the industrial economy—the path to achieving those goals will remain uncertain. In 2008, at the height of the go-go

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for firm action against entrenched corporate power remains largely unanswered. These problems then focus attention on one final critical barrier India faces: government itself. The crony capitalism of America’s Gilded Age ended when rampant nineteenth-century clientelism was curbed by impartial, meritocratic twentieth-century public administration. The kind of concentrated power

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. Instead, with good judgment, India’s new Gilded Age can blossom into a Progressive Era of its own, in which the perils of inequality and crony capitalism are left decisively behind. India’s ambition to lead the second half of the Asian century—and the world’s hopes for a more democratic

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,” The Times, May 21, 2011. 19. James Crabtree, “Slumdog Billionaires: The Rise of India’s Tycoons,” New Statesman, June 5, 2014. 20. Pei, China’s Crony Capitalism, pp. 7–8. 21. James Crabtree, “India’s New Politics,” Financial Times, April 25, 2014. 22. Misra, Rediscovering Gandhi, vol. 1, p. 61. 23. James

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the Bollygarchs 1. Jim Yardley and Vikas Bajaj, “Billionaires’ Rise Aids India, and Vice Versa,” New York Times, July 26, 2011. 2. Gowda and Sharalaya, “Crony Capitalism and India’s Political System,” p. 140. 3. James Crabtree, “Gautam Adani, Founder, Adani Group,” Financial Times, June 16, 2013. 4. Naazneen Karmali, “For the

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be both good and bad. Ruchi Sharma shows how to tell apart.” Scroll.in, June 14, 2016. 30. Khatri and Ohja, “Indian Economic Philosophy and Crony Capitalism,” p. 63. 31. Alvaredo et al., “The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective.” 32. Freund, Rich People Poor Countries, p. 3. 33. Global

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Adani Group Evade Rs 1,000 Crore in Taxes?” The Wire, January 14, 2017. 60. Amrit Dhillon, “More than 100 Scholars Back Journalist in Adani ‘Crony Capitalism’ Row,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 25, 2017. Chapter 4: India Modified 1. Milan Vaishnav, “Understanding the Indian Voter,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2015

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Pathology of Corruption, p. 44. 21. Oldenburg, “Middlemen in Third-World Corruption.” 22. Bhagwati and Panagariya, Why Growth Matters, p. 87. 23. Pei, China’s Crony Capitalism, p. 8. 24. Vaishnav, When Crime Pays, p. 31. 25. James Crabtree, “India: Lost Connections,” Financial Times, September 2, 2012. 26. Ninan, The Turn of

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Times, April 7, 2014. 11. Amy Kazmin, “Narendra Modi Mocks Economists amid Doubts over Indian GDP,” Financial Times, March 2, 2017. 12. Gowda and Sharalaya, “Crony Capitalism and India’s Political System,” p. 133. 13. S. Rukmini, “400% Rise in Parties’ Spend on LS Polls,” The Hindu, March 2, 2015. 14. J

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, May 1, 2013. 41. Kapur and Vaishnav, “Quid Pro Quo.” 42. James Crabtree, “Mumbai’s Bloodied Elite,” Prospect, December 17, 2008. 43. Gowda and Sharalaya, “Crony Capitalism and India’s Political System.” Chapter 8: House of Debt 1. “Profile: Rakesh Jhunjhunwala,” Forbes, June 15, 2017; “The World’s Billionaires Index,” Forbes, March

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, 2015. 24. “Raghuram Rajan Not to Continue as RBI Governor after September,” Scroll, June 18, 2016. 25. Luigi Zingales, “RBI Governor Rajan’s Fight against Crony Capitalism,” Pro Market, June 11, 2016. 26. Rahul Shrivastava, “Why IIT, Harvard Graduate Jayant Sinha Lost Finance Ministry,” NDTV, July 7, 2016. Chapter 9: The Anxious

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. Gomez, E. T. Political Business in East Asia. London, Routledge, 2002. Gowda, M. V. R. and Sharalaya, N. “Crony Capitalism and India’s Political System.” In N. Khatri and A. K. Ojha, eds., Crony Capitalism in India: Establishing Robust Counteractive Institutional Frameworks. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Guha, R. A Corner of a Foreign Field

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Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, rev. ed. London, Pan Macmillan, 2011. Guha Thakurta, P., Ghosh, S., and Chaudhuri, J. Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis. New Delhi, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, 2014. Gupta, A. and Kumar, P. “India Financial Sector: House of Debt.” Credit Suisse, August 2, 2012

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by Corrupting?” Crime, Law and Social Change, 48(3–5), 2007. Khatri, N. and Ohja, A. K. “Indian Economic Philosophy and Crony Capitalism.” In N. Khatri and A. K. Ojha, eds., Crony Capitalism in India: Establishing Robust Counteractive Institutional Frameworks. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Khilnani, S. The Idea of India. New Delhi, Penguin, 1999

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for Strategy and Execution. Boston, Harvard Business Press, 2010. Panagariya, A. India: The Emerging Giant. New York, Oxford University Press, 2010. Pei, M. China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2016. Phongpaichit, P. “The Thai Economy in the Mid-1990s.” In D. Singh and L

The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay

by Guy Standing  · 13 Jul 2016  · 443pp  · 98,113 words

global framework of institutions and regulations that enable elites to maximise their rental income. It is anything but a ‘free market’. FROM BRETTON WOODS TO CRONY CAPITALISM In 1944, forty-four allied nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in the USA to set up a trio of global institutions. The World

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while directing funds into the privatisation of crucial economic sectors, the scope for corruption and ecological neglect was vastly increased. It created the conditions for ‘crony capitalism’, enabling well-connected individuals and companies to take control of key sectors and turn themselves into plutocrats through opportunistic networking and clientelism. Carlos Slim became

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result of free markets but as the predicted consequence of institutional interventions deploying an ideological agenda. They created a venal form of crony capitalism. The Economist has constructed an index of crony capitalism based on the wealth of billionaires in sectors such as casinos, oil and construction where, in its view, there is ample

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, the index does not include technology industries or much of finance as rent-seeking sectors, despite their lobbying power. In 2014 The Economist suggested that crony capitalism had peaked, but in 2016 it acknowledged that there was still reason to worry. Even on its restricted definition of crony sectors, crony wealth accounted

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as a crony industry, rent-seeking wealth would be higher and rising steadily in the Western world.’ Moreover, The Economist’s narrow definition substantially understates crony capitalism. Its examples of rent seeking were ‘forming cartels’ and ‘lobbying for rules that benefit a firm at the expense of competitors and customers’. It thus

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omitted the most insidious way in which crony capitalism is extending its grip: political manipulation by the plutocracy and elite, who are funding politicians and political parties to favour the interest of rentiers (see

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Chapter 7). Another aspect of crony capitalism is the spread of corporate rentier devices. Individuals or groups buy firms, saddle them with debt, pay themselves huge bonuses and then declare bankruptcy, thereby

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capitalism. Given the spread of intellectual property rules, development of the global capital-risk insurance system and the rent-seeking abilities of the plutocracy in crony capitalism, the existing situation is probably the most unfree market system in history. There has been a commodification of ideas, knowledge and information. While Paul Mason

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democratic systems that could change the rules. NOTES 1 D. McClintick, ‘How Harvard lost Russia’, Institutional Investor, 27 February 2006. 2 ‘The new age of crony capitalism’, The Economist, 15 March 2014, pp. 9, 53–4; ‘The party winds down’, The Economist, 7 May 2016, pp. 46–8. 3 M. Lupu, K

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small businesses. As the Cato Institute said, corporate welfare ‘undermines the broader economy and transfers wealth from average taxpaying households to favored firms’ and fosters ‘crony capitalism’ by creating ties between politicians and business that fuel corruption. Some subsidies miss the intended recipients. The US Research and Development Tax Credit was meant

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I. Illich, ‘Silence is a Commons’, Asahi Symposium on ‘Science and Man – The computer-managed society’, Tokyo, 21 March 1982. 4 ‘The new age of crony capitalism’, The Economist, 15 March 2014. 5 World Bank, The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium (Washington DC: World Bank, 2011

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hold similar events, although they charge half as much and cannot offer ministers in office. This is yet another example of commercialised democracy. The term ‘crony capitalism’ describes the blending of commercial interests with political power. The transition of party donors into senior government posts is a classic example. The many dubious

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, who has donated millions of pounds to the Labour Party, was appointed Science Minister in the New Labour government. These are just two examples of crony capitalism. PRIVATISATION AND POLITICAL REVOLVING DOORS Privatisation of public services is rife with potential for corruption and rent seeking. Successive governments have allowed ministers and advisors

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, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Couchsurfing 1 Coulson, Andy 1 County Smallholdings Estate 1 ‘credentialism’ 1 ‘creditocracy’ 1 Crime and Disorder Act (1998) 1 ‘crony capitalism’ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Crosby, Lynton 1, 2 Crowdcube 1 CrowdFlower 1, 2, 3 crowdfunding 1, 2 crowd-sourcing 1 ‘crowdwork’ platforms 1 cultural

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1, 2, 3 selective tax rates 1 Selma 1 shaping of rentier capitalism branding 1 Bretton Woods system 1, 2, 3 and copyright 1 and ‘crony capitalism’ 1, 2, 3 dispute settlement systems 1, 2, 3 global architecture of rentier capitalism 1 lies of rentier capitalism 1 and neo-liberalism 1, 2

The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure: Why Pure Capitalism Is the World Economy's Only Hope

by John A. Allison  · 20 Sep 2012  · 348pp  · 99,383 words

better name for these individuals and firms. If the United States had separation of “business and state” as it does separation of “church and state,” crony capitalism (or crony socialism) could not exist. 4. Almost every governmental action taken since the crisis started, even those that may help in the short term

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jumbo mortgages. (Jumbo mortgages are loans that are too large for Freddie and Fannie’s lending limits, but are mostly prime loans.) The effect of crony capitalism and pragmatism was clearly obvious to this group. For some of the lenders, the main goal was to not make Freddie and Fannie unhappy. After

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decried corporate bailouts as unjust, but not if they did so out of a hatred for corporations, capitalism, and honest moneymaking. To the degree that “crony capitalism” protected these firms and individuals and kept justice from happening, we will have a lower standard of living in the long term. It’s not

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. taxpayers bailed out these European banks in the amount of more than $50 billion. Why? Was “saving” Goldman and AIG about systems risk or about crony capitalism? One reason Wall Street has such a bad reputation is because of the connection between Wall Street and the U.S. government. Unfortunately, Goldman is

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, money. However, the problem is not Goldman. The problem is that the politicians and bureaucrats have this power. If the U.S. Constitution were enforced, crony capitalism would not work because the politicians and bureaucrats would not have the authority to hand out favors to their friends. If there were a separation

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of economics and state as there is of church and state, crony capitalism would not be possible. Crony capitalism is really crony socialism and is caused by politicians, that is, government. There can be no moral justification for saving Goldman and letting

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required to balance the budget would be a dramatically smaller part of the economy, and fiscal policy (deficit spending) would not be an issue. Also, crony capitalism (crony socialism) would not exist because government could not dole out favors to political constituents and unions could not buy special benefits through political contributions

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–205 U.S. investment by, 29, 159 Chrysler, 130, 179–180 Citigroup: bailout of, 50, 104, 130, 177 CDOs of, 125–126 credit decisions, 238 crony capitalism, 6 funding of shadow banking system, 120 long-term debt of, 71 and panic during financial crisis, 163 pragmatism at, 217–218 reason at, 245

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–27 Consumption: borrowing for, 57–58 housing as, 9–12, 54–55, 73–74 Contagion risk, 123 Corporate debt, 107 Counterparty risk, 123, 124 Countrywide: crony capitalism at, 6 and fair-value accounting change, 114, 118 and FDIC insurance, 39, 41, 46 necessary failure of, 159 pick-a-payment mortgages of, 91

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CPI (see Consumer Price Index) CRA (see Community Reinvestment Act) Creativity, 7, 247 Credit default swaps (CDSs), 126–128 Credit rating agencies (see Rating agencies) Crony capitalism, 6, 102, 129, 179 Cross-guarantor insurance fund, 48–52 Cuba, 34, 247, 252 Cuomo, Andrew, 58 Currency, debasing, 22 Debt, 21–22, 107 Declaration

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, 91, 92, 98, 159 Goldman Sachs, 71, 173 as AIG counterparty, 128–129 bailout of, 104, 164, 179 CDSs of, 126 counterparty risk at, 124 crony capitalism at, 6 financial “innovations” of, 101 Government policy: as cause of financial crisis, 1, 5–6, 251 and residential real estate bubble, 6 (See also

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government spending, 197–199 for immigration, 205–206 for political system, 206–207 and tax rate, 196–197 Politics: in banking regulation, 42–46 and crony capitalism, 129 and failure of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, 59–62 and Federal Reserve appointments, 18 policy reforms for, 206–207 Poor, Henry Varnum, 150 Portugal

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State

by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge  · 14 May 2014  · 372pp  · 92,477 words

consumers from rogue corporations with laws such as the Meat Inspection Act (1906) and the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906). He waged war on “crony capitalism”—or the unholy alliance between “corrupt politics” and “corrupt business” as he put it in the 1912 platform for his breakaway Progressive Party. He wanted

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an increase in regulation as individual businesses have lobbied for rules that create barriers to entry for other firms. That is the heart of modern crony capitalism—it explains why so many subsidies go to so many people. But Olson’s law also applies to the public sector itself. Indeed, few Californians

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on the part of the dozens of companies, accounting for 10 percent of the economy, run by the military). Or look at sub-Saharan Africa: Crony capitalism is lowering growth and increasing inequality. For the state to direct capitalism, you need a strong and competent state—and sadly, most countries that are

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, an old cause of everybody who cares about the health of the state. Different states have different opportunities: Nigeria has more to gain from attacking crony capitalism than Scandinavia does while China has more to gain from selling off state assets than Britain does. To give our prescriptions some focus, we will

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congressmen, ranchers, and the Department of the Interior is not a healthy one. The heirs of Reagan could do with a little of his vim. CRONY CAPITALISM BY THE POTOMAC If privatization is the American Right’s great blind spot, subsidies for the wealthy is the Left’s. Dismantling the web of

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redistribution. It would be much better to focus on dismantling the welfare state for America’s plutocrats. There are two rich targets. The first is crony capitalism: all those subsidies for well-connected industries. The second is the personal tax system, which, as we have seen, is massively distorted by aid to

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the rich. Fixing these things would simultaneously slim Leviathan and help it focus its energies on people who actually need its help. Crony capitalism represents the most egregious example of Olson’s law. If market capitalism provides a way of turning private benefits to the public good, as Adam

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Smith argued, crony capitalism provides a way of turning public goods to private gain, lining the pockets of the powerful, undermining economic competitiveness, and misdirecting resources on a huge

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supposed to believe that America’s farmers are less independent and innovative than their New Zealand rivals? If agriculture is the grand old man of crony capitalism, then the financial-services industry is the flashy new kid on the block. The industry now employs more lobbyists than any other: four per congressman

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includes helping businesses minimize their tax bills and lobby the government. For progressives of all sorts this is a huge missed opportunity. The battle against crony capitalism is older than America itself: The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the East India Company, which was using its political connections in London

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to subsidize its tea. The Democratic Party would not only save the state a lot of money if it were to campaign against crony capitalism. It would also become a champion of the future in much the same way that British radicals did in the nineteenth century by taking on

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on democracy. There will be plenty of opportunities for demagoguery on the part of special interests. Parliamentarians will not give up their rotten boroughs easily; crony capitalism will fight hard for its subsidies. But reformers should push ahead, clinging to the three great undeniables of their cause. The first is that the

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Gladstone, a small-government liberal, “saving candle ends and cheese paring in the cause of the country.” | Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Would Teddy Roosevelt tolerate crony capitalism in today’s Washington? | The Granger Collection, New York Beatrice and Sidney Webb, godparents of the welfare state. | The Granger Collection, New York Friedrich Hayek

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, 50, 238, 240 corruption, 185–86 crime, Western state and, 181–82 Crimean War, 65 Croly, Herbert, 71 Cromwell, Oliver, 32 Cromwell, Thomas, 6, 37 crony capitalism, 72, 112, 155, 234, 237–38, 246, 269 Cultural Revolution, 156 Czech Republic, 252 Darwin, Charles, 59 Das, Gurcharan, 13 Davies, Mervyn, 215 decentralization, 216

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antiliberal discourse in, 95–96 big government in, 71–72 checks and balances system in, 226, 250, 255–56, 265 China contrasted with, 147, 153 crony capitalism in, 237–38, 246 deficits and deficit spending in, 14, 97, 100, 120, 231, 241 democracy’s failures in, 254–59 education reform in, 212

Adam Smith: Father of Economics

by Jesse Norman  · 30 Jun 2018

back from Smith himself to look at his ideas and their later impact in closer detail. In particular, they focus on four areas—economics, markets, crony capitalism and moral norms and values—in which Smith’s thought is both profound and of huge contemporary relevance. But first we look at that thought

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—the Smith of history, philosophy and political economy—still has a vast amount to teach us. In a wide range of areas, from markets to crony capitalism to inequality to the social foundations of our lives, there are profound lessons to be drawn from his thought, as we shall see. In the

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closer to those of other similarly skilled industries, if it could be achieved, would transform the profitability of the banks, and the returns to shareholders. CRONY CAPITALISM AND ‘THE MERCANTILE INTEREST’ Lobbying, rent-extraction, very high pay, growing inequality… the pattern seems clear. Yet, although it is especially evident in the banking

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sector, one should not ignore the wider picture. For this is just one extreme example of a much more general phenomenon: crony capitalism. What is crony capitalism? It has no single settled definition. But for present purposes we can usefully think of it as having two key features. The first is

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seek out legal subsidies and political favours, on the grounds that its management are under an obligation to maximize profits in the interests of shareholders. Crony capitalism comes in different varieties. Monopoly capitalism flourished in the USA at the end of the nineteenth century. At that time individuals such as Cornelius Vanderbilt

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in relation to Adam Smith? Is he the cause of our present discontents? How far should we see him as implicated in the rise of crony capitalism? The first point to note is the difficulty of making worthwhile judgements across more than two centuries and in such vastly different circumstances. Smith was

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, then, the truth is in many ways not so much a controversion as a direct contradiction of the popular caricature. There was a kind of crony capitalism in Smith’s own day, long before the advent of capitalism itself in its full form, which—just as today—linked political lobbying, anti-competitive

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degree of personal bravery for him to do so. Indeed, Smith appears to have been the first person to present a comprehensive analysis of what crony capitalism amounts to, and why it is damaging to business and government alike. In doing so he opened up and made prominent three sets of ideas

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, collusion, lobbying and their effects; and the wider links he draws between mercantilism and colonization are bold and illuminating. The second important idea in analysing crony capitalism is that there can be asymmetries of information and power between players in a market. Merchants can readily hoodwink politicians, as we have seen; and

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Gordon Tullock, which sees government itself in effect as an interest group, spring from this. So Smith does not endorse what we would now consider crony capitalism; he attacks it. Indeed, he does not merely attack it; he offers a deep critique of it as a pathology of commercial society, and lays

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together, these views amount to a vigorous critique of the class structure of British society. Any suggestion that Smith is somehow a founding father of crony capitalism is, then, wildly mistaken. Indeed, Smith’s idealistic vision of an economy according to the ‘natural progress of liberty’—a vision for Great Britain ‘as

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applied, can in principle be onerous. Meanwhile government acts to support education, improve public works and prevent market-manipulation and rent-extraction. This is not crony capitalism, in any of its many varieties, but its antidote. CAPITALISM AND EQUALITY A better understanding of Adam Smith and his thought does not merely serve

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achievements of the modern market economy, to trace the arguments over free trade since Smith’s death and to examine new forces helping to drive crony capitalism today. One point is absolutely fundamental, and bears restating: that markets are the greatest tool of economic development, wealth-creation and social advance ever known

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.01 per cent and the rest—that is, at the very high end of the income spectrum—and this is in part the result of crony capitalism. But the overall picture is that global inequality is falling, especially between nations, and it is falling because of the spread of markets. This confirms

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the point already made: that crony capitalism is a specific pathology, a disease of capitalism rather than capitalism itself. The capacity to create human prosperity is a human good, so the case

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trade restrictions, privileges and tariffs, and the distortion of domestic politics created by the great mercantile lobbies—the national and international forerunners of today’s crony capitalism. And there can be little doubt he would have denounced many of these later developments. He was a committed believer in the wisdom of freeing

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manufacturing industries in nascent markets over existing agriculture, on the grounds of its greater added value—despite his clear dislike of interference in established markets. CRONY CAPITALISM: THE NEXT FRONTIER From a Smithian viewpoint, then, the case for freely trading markets is overwhelming, but the idea that the modern world has enjoyed

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the USA, is largely a myth. The West enjoyed the benefits of commercial society, but it also continued to deploy the weapons of mercantilism or crony capitalism to extract value from other countries. This is quite at odds with the radical critique of Smith as the supposed originator of the ills of

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global capitalism. Yet a Smithian viewpoint also enables us to look forward: at new forms of crony capitalism, and how they can be addressed. For there is every reason to fear the continued growth of crony capitalism. First, the economics of lobbying continue to be enormously enriching, especially to the global corporations which

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no burden of calculation in making choices—is evident. Yet as technology spreads, there are increasing dangers of the proliferation of a new tech-enabled crony capitalism: a self-reinforcing cycle in which greater insider power encourages the development of bent markets; these in turn create popular demands for more government regulation

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potential costs; that the lobbying power of corporate interests is a serious risk both to effective markets and to legitimate government; that crony capitalism flourishes where markets are not competitive; that crony capitalism can be understood in terms of the three key ideas of economic rent-seeking, asymmetries of power and information, and agency

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serious way, let alone to develop the kind of systematic account of its strengths and weaknesses that might enable it to combat the spread of crony capitalism. Until recently, the centre-left has neglected to offer any serious critique either, let alone to prepare for or address the negative effects of globalization

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and respectability to people’s status and sense of self, the way he minimizes inequality within his ‘natural system of liberty’, his devastating attack on crony capitalism, his stadial theory of human development, his historical analysis of the supersession of feudalism by commerce and his extremely subtle exploration and defence of commercial

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: through a tendency to monopoly, through poor regulation, through loss of animal spirits and more widely through crony capitalism enabled by rent-seeking, asymmetries of information and power, and conflicts of interest between owners and managers. Crony capitalism is a general blight, because it damages the economy, corrupts politics, tends to increase inequality and

…

of natural liberty, a source of ‘universal opulence’, that is of general prosperity, not the enrichment of a few. However, a fifth lesson is that crony capitalism is far from the only challenge facing modern commercial society. The deepest threats are those which directly affect the idea of human value itself. One

…

is the continuing commercialization of the public realm. Another is the impact of new technologies, which have the capacity to worsen crony capitalism by tilting the playing field still further towards insiders and away from citizens and consumers. The spread of social media also raises profound questions of

…

rationality, preference-formation and transaction costs are acknowledged. That acknowledgement must sit within a wider conception of political economy that better grasps the realities of crony capitalism, the insufficiency of pure ‘market failure’ explanations, the central facts of uncertainty and dynamic interaction within human life, the relevance of other disciplines and the

…

by themselves can never be enough. With it can come greater social trust, and the potential to strengthen the institutions and public standards that restrain crony capitalism. Finally, there must be political renewal. In effect, Smith’s ideas pose challenges to the outer flanks of both the left and the right: to

…

-faire economist, ignores the important differences between Smith and his nineteenth-century liberal successors and mistakes the thrust of Smith’s attack on monopolies and crony capitalism; for which see Chapter 9 below ‘Every man… is left perfectly free’: WN IV.ix.51 ‘Those laws and customs so favourable to the yeomanry

…

by Self-Regulation’, OECD 2009; ‘Money and Politics’, The Economist, 1 October 2011 Varieties of crony capitalism: cf. Jesse Norman, ‘The Case for Real Capitalism’, Working Paper, www.jessenorman.com 2011. A tour de force on crony capitalism is Luigi Zingales, A Capitalism for the People: Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity, Basic

…

and, 325–326 corporate, 267 equality and, 273–276 franchise, khaki, licence, 263 globalization and, 287 monopoly, 263 wealth-creation in, 275, 321 See also crony capitalism; narco-capitalism cases, effects and, 44 cash account, 89, 92 Catholicism, 31–32, 83, 163–164, 183, 288–289 Cato (Addison), 8 Charles I (king

…

and, 109–110 Cooper, George, 252 corporate capitalism, 267 corporate lobbying, 264 corporations, 257–258, 321 cosmos, 46 Cournot, Antoine Augustin, 202 Cromwell, Oliver, 12 crony capitalism, 328, 332 defining, 262 in inequality, 275 lobbying in, 262–264 mercantile interest and, 262–273 new forms of, 280–287 technology in, 280–284

…

of natural liberty licence capitalism, 263 Lincoln, Abraham, 276 linguistic exchange, 298 literature, 43–44 loans, 249–250 lobbying by banks, 261 corporate, 264 in crony capitalism, 262–264 Locke, John, 232 London, England, 96–97, 101 Louis XIV (king), 13, 32, 34 Louis XVI (king), 162 love, 56–57, 147–148

Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles

by Ruchir Sharma  · 8 Apr 2012  · 411pp  · 114,717 words

has begun to stall since they became middle-income countries. Malaysia and Thailand appeared to be on course to emerge as rich nations until the crony capitalism at the heart of those systems caused a financial meltdown in the crisis of 1998. Their growth has disappointed ever since. In the 1960s, the

…

in 2011. The government appears to be both creating competitive churn among the very wealthy and restricting their maximum wealth. To be sure, there is crony capitalism in China, or wealth built on friendly ties to the government. Some reports even suggest that a majority of the Chinese worth more than $10

…

closer to 50 percent, owing to a whole series of risks that the Indian and foreign elites leave out of the picture, including bloated government, crony capitalism, falling turnover among the rich and powerful, and a disturbing tendency of farmers to stay on the farm. The early signs of an unraveling have

…

spiral as the wages guaranteed by MGNREGA pushed rural wage inflation up to 15 percent in 2011. Under the current regime of drift in India, crony capitalism has become a real worry. Widespread corruption is an old problem, but the situation has now reached a stage where the decisive factor in any

…

national pride, not resentment, and they can travel the country with no fear for their safety, but this genial state of affairs can change quickly. Crony capitalism is a cancer that undermines competition and slows economic growth. That is why the United States confronted the problem and moved to take down the

…

China’s. But destiny can never be taken for granted. Indian policy makers cannot assume that demographics will triumph and that problems such as rising crony capitalism and increased welfare spending are just sideshows instead of major challenges. These are exactly the factors that have prematurely choked growth in other emerging markets

…

and one constitution. The difference is that at least until the 2000s, Thailand’s unstable leaders made better economic choices—from controlling debt and restraining crony capitalism to making the country more attractive to foreign investment, as Japanese car companies turned Thailand into their Asian factory-away-from-home. Now, at long

…

$700 billion. Intriguingly, the family dynasties that still dominate the top-thirty Korean companies, and that were widely seen as the heart of a severe “crony capitalism” problem at the depths of the Asian financial crisis in 1998, have reformed so dramatically that they are now a core strength for the local

…

, 42, 43–44, 45, 46–47, 49–51, 58, 150, 157, 202 credit cards, 8, 157 Credit Suisse, 50 crime rate, 71, 78, 181, 211 “crony capitalism,” 10, 25, 38, 42, 46–47, 49, 50–51, 58, 131, 139 Cuba, 191 cuisine, 52–53 currencies, 4–5, 9, 12, 13–14, 26

The Upside of Inequality

by Edward Conard  · 1 Sep 2016  · 436pp  · 98,538 words

income inequality at all.”1 The critics’ demand for a comprehensive defense of income inequality planted the seeds for this book. Since 2012, accusations that crony capitalism and the success of the 1 percent slow middle- and working-class income growth have only grown louder. While the incomes of the 0.1

…

an article blaming the 1 percent for the stagnant wages of the middle class.1 If people aren’t accusing the 1 percent of using crony capitalism to steal what they haven’t earned, then they are accusing them of inventing technology that hollows out the middle class or stifles the advancement

…

investments that may spark faster economic growth. At first glance, these accusations seem reasonable. The growth of middle-class and working-class incomes has slowed. Crony capitalism does exist. Automation and offshoring seem to have reduced the number of high-paying factory jobs. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook scarcely seem to

…

the U.S. economy has accelerated relative to other high-wage economies with more equally distributed incomes—the opposite of what one would expect if crony capitalism or other unfair means of income distribution had increased in the United States on a scale necessary to account for rising income inequality. U.S

…

. They believe that CEOs would “give it their all” even if they were paid less.22 Were this true, it would be an indication of crony capitalism, since boards are presumably responsible for negotiating the lowest possible CEO pay and are failing to do so if their CEOs would do their jobs

…

corporations to more entrepreneurial ventures. We can’t afford to lose more. Business Has Grown More Competitive Despite Higher Profits Recognizing the flimsiness of the crony capitalism argument formulated by Piketty, which claims individuals have not earned their success, Larry Summers, Joe Stiglitz, Robert Reich, and others have independently endeavored to argue

…

spectrum of pay—efforts to increase the pay of lower-paid workers by fiat, whether through unions and minimum-wage laws, are no different than crony capitalism. They misallocate resources and subsequently slow growth and reduce wages. Rather than enlarging the economic pie, they make it smaller than it would otherwise be

…

, 15, 97, 249–54 Costa, Daniel, 237 cost of goods, 13–14, 25, 38, 44–47 cost of living, 46–47 critical thinking, 237 cronyism (crony capitalism), 3, 11, 87–88, 89, 92, 95–96, 107, 185 customers capturing value of innovation, 16, 75–79 passing cost of taxes onto, 252–53

Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

by John Mackey, Rajendra Sisodia and Bill George  · 7 Jan 2014  · 335pp  · 104,850 words

call their version conscious capitalism. I consider it just capitalism, as it is the only authentic form of capitalism. Other forms of doing business, including “crony capitalism,” are simply inauthentic versions of the real thing. As we witnessed during the global economic meltdown of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed, these

…

their deepest levels. Regulations and the size and scope of government have greatly expanded, creating the conditions for the spread of crony capitalism, restricting competition in favor of politically well-connected businesses. Crony capitalism is not capitalism at all, but is seen as such by many because it involves businesspeople. These are significant challenges

…

restore it to its true essence: that the purpose of business is to improve our lives and to create value for stakeholders. The Cancer of Crony Capitalism True free-enterprise capitalism imposes strict accountability and strong internal discipline on businesses. For over a century, the U.S. economy demonstrated to the world

…

competitors, laws that prevent market entry, and government-sanctioned cartels.16 While free-enterprise capitalism is inherently virtuous and vitally necessary for democracy and prosperity, crony capitalism is intrinsically unethical and poses a grave threat to our freedom and well-being. Unfortunately, our current system has the effect of corrupting many honorable

…

on the tired maxims of self-interest and profit maximization. Otherwise, we risk the continued growth of increasingly coercive governments, the corruption of enterprises through crony capitalism, and the consequential loss of both our freedom and our prosperity. Those who recognize and embrace the life-affirming power of free-enterprise capitalism must

…

now that enable these same financial institutions to make very high and virtually risk-free profits on the interest rate spreads—a prime example of crony capitalism run amok.1 Treating Investors Responsibly and Consciously Having been entrusted with the capital of investors, businesses have an ethical and fiduciary responsibility to make

…

companies have operated in the past. Investing in the Future Much of the animosity toward capitalism today comes from the distortions that crony capitalism has created. In no place is crony capitalism more evident than in the financial sector of the economy. No sector of capitalism more urgently needs to become more conscious and

…

the current system, which has been largely captured by special interests such as the dairy, meat, and processed-food industries. (This is an example of crony capitalism, with companies using the power of government to promote their business interests at the expense of the health and well-being of children.) Schools have

…

. When people see this kind of corruption, they usually blame business for doing the corrupting. But the government is equally to blame. This kind of crony capitalism represents the worst danger to free-enterprise capitalism. The danger is especially great in emerging economies, but is a problem everywhere and is becoming a

…

serious problem in the United States. Many people who condemn capitalism do so for this reason. But crony capitalism is not free-enterprise capitalism; it is a perversion of it. The bottom line is that good government is absolutely essential. If government becomes too

…

and its extraordinary upside as businesses become more conscious, we will soon find our lives dominated and diminished by dangerous and distorted forms such as crony capitalism or some form of state capitalism. The Limitless Possibilities of Human Ingenuity We humans are capable of extraordinary things. Think of all our astonishing accomplishments

…

, Least in Congress,” Gallup Politics, June 23, 2011, www.gallup.com/poll/148163/Americans-Confident-Military-Least-Congress.aspx. 16. Bill Frezza, “Exactly What is Crony Capitalism, Anyway?” Real Clear Markets, December 12, 2011. 17. Sandy Cutler, interview with authors, April 10, 2012. 18. Marc Gafni, interview with authors, March 15, 2012

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by Russell Napier  · 19 Jul 2021  · 511pp  · 151,359 words

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The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be

by Moises Naim  · 5 Mar 2013  · 474pp  · 120,801 words

Why geography matters: three challenges facing America : climate change, the rise of China, and global terrorism

by Harm J. De Blij  · 15 Nov 2007  · 481pp  · 121,300 words

Panderer to Power

by Frederick Sheehan  · 21 Oct 2009  · 435pp  · 127,403 words

The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality

by Branko Milanovic  · 15 Dec 2010  · 251pp  · 69,245 words

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class

by Guy Standing  · 27 Feb 2011  · 209pp  · 89,619 words

Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making

by David Rothkopf  · 18 Mar 2008  · 535pp  · 158,863 words

The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition

by Jonathan Tepper  · 20 Nov 2018  · 417pp  · 97,577 words

From Peoples into Nations

by John Connelly  · 11 Nov 2019

Money Free and Unfree

by George A. Selgin  · 14 Jun 2017  · 454pp  · 134,482 words

Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World

by Michael Schuman  · 8 Jun 2020

When They Go Low, We Go High: Speeches That Shape the World – and Why We Need Them

by Philip Collins  · 4 Oct 2017  · 475pp  · 156,046 words

Only Americans Burn in Hell

by Jarett Kobek  · 10 Apr 2019  · 338pp  · 74,302 words

Jared Bibler

by Iceland's Secret The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Con-Harriman House (2021)

Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire

by Hans Gremeil and William Sposato  · 15 Dec 2021  · 404pp  · 126,447 words

American Marxism

by Mark R. Levin  · 12 Jul 2021  · 314pp  · 88,524 words

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

by Sven Beckert  · 2 Dec 2014  · 1,000pp  · 247,974 words

The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite

by Daniel Markovits  · 14 Sep 2019  · 976pp  · 235,576 words

Human Frontiers: The Future of Big Ideas in an Age of Small Thinking

by Michael Bhaskar  · 2 Nov 2021

Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies

by Judith Stein  · 30 Apr 2010  · 497pp  · 143,175 words

The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity

by Peter Schwartz, Peter Leyden and Joel Hyatt  · 18 Oct 2000  · 353pp  · 355 words

What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences

by Steven G. Mandis  · 9 Sep 2013  · 413pp  · 117,782 words

Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants

by Bethany McLean  · 13 Sep 2015  · 160pp  · 6,876 words

Why We Can't Afford the Rich

by Andrew Sayer  · 6 Nov 2014  · 504pp  · 143,303 words

Endless Money: The Moral Hazards of Socialism

by William Baker and Addison Wiggin  · 2 Nov 2009  · 444pp  · 151,136 words

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

by Ta-Nehisi Coates  · 2 Oct 2017  · 349pp  · 114,914 words

Two Nations, Indivisible: A History of Inequality in America: A History of Inequality in America

by Jamie Bronstein  · 29 Oct 2016  · 332pp  · 89,668 words

Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy

by Jonathan Taplin  · 17 Apr 2017  · 222pp  · 70,132 words

The Default Line: The Inside Story of People, Banks and Entire Nations on the Edge

by Faisal Islam  · 28 Aug 2013  · 475pp  · 155,554 words

People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

by Joseph E. Stiglitz  · 22 Apr 2019  · 462pp  · 129,022 words

Red Flags: Why Xi's China Is in Jeopardy

by George Magnus  · 10 Sep 2018  · 371pp  · 98,534 words

The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification

by Paul Roberts  · 1 Sep 2014  · 324pp  · 92,805 words

The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy

by David Hoffman  · 1 Jan 2009  · 719pp  · 209,224 words

How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say--And What It Really Means

by John Lanchester  · 5 Oct 2014  · 261pp  · 86,905 words

The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us

by Joel Kotkin  · 11 Apr 2016  · 565pp  · 122,605 words

Big Data and the Welfare State: How the Information Revolution Threatens Social Solidarity

by Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm  · 18 May 2022

When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe  · 3 Oct 2022  · 689pp  · 134,457 words

In FED We Trust: Ben Bernanke's War on the Great Panic

by David Wessel  · 3 Aug 2009  · 350pp  · 109,220 words

Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal

by George Packer  · 14 Jun 2021  · 173pp  · 55,328 words

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein  · 15 Sep 2014  · 829pp  · 229,566 words

Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World

by Deirdre N. McCloskey  · 15 Nov 2011  · 1,205pp  · 308,891 words

The Greed Merchants: How the Investment Banks Exploited the System

by Philip Augar  · 20 Apr 2005  · 290pp  · 83,248 words

How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (Information Policy)

by Benjamin Peters  · 2 Jun 2016  · 518pp  · 107,836 words

Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil

by Hamish McKenzie  · 30 Sep 2017  · 307pp  · 90,634 words

The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business

by Richard Brooks  · 2 Jan 2014  · 301pp  · 88,082 words

Dead Companies Walking

by Scott Fearon  · 10 Nov 2014  · 232pp  · 71,965 words

The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath

by Nicco Mele  · 14 Apr 2013  · 270pp  · 79,992 words

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

by Matt Taibbi  · 15 Feb 2010  · 291pp  · 91,783 words

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

by Kai-Fu Lee  · 14 Sep 2018  · 307pp  · 88,180 words

The Long Game: China's Grand Strategy to Displace American Order

by Rush Doshi  · 24 Jun 2021  · 816pp  · 191,889 words

Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future

by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson  · 26 Jun 2017  · 472pp  · 117,093 words

The Payoff

by Jeff Connaughton  · 202pp  · 66,742 words

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters  · 15 Sep 2014  · 185pp  · 43,609 words

American Made: Why Making Things Will Return Us to Greatness

by Dan Dimicco  · 3 Mar 2015  · 219pp  · 61,720 words

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

by Max Blumenthal  · 27 Nov 2012  · 840pp  · 224,391 words

Space 2.0

by Rod Pyle  · 2 Jan 2019  · 352pp  · 87,930 words

Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid

by Meredith. Angwin  · 18 Oct 2020  · 376pp  · 101,759 words

The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World

by Philip Coggan  · 1 Jul 2025  · 96pp  · 36,083 words

Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

by Aaron Dignan  · 1 Feb 2019  · 309pp  · 81,975 words

City Parks

by Catie Marron

Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again

by Brittany Kaiser  · 21 Oct 2019  · 391pp  · 123,597 words