crony capitalism

Where next for capitalism?

Writing for the BBC today, Madsen outlines his ideas about what capitalism should do to renew itself:

What capitalism should now do is to free itself from these rent-seeking perversions and spread its benefits as widely as possible.

It should act against anti-competitive practices to give people instead the power of free choices between competing goods and services. It should spread ownership of capital and investment as widely as possible through such things as personal pensions and individual savings accounts.

Read the whole thing.

No wonder activists hate the Koch brothers so much

his ia a rather alarming thing for any activist to read in the daily newspaper. From Charles Koch in the WSJ:

Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies and protective tariffs—even when we benefit from them. I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich and powerful, and should be abolished. Koch Industries was the only major producer in the ethanol industry to argue for the demise of the ethanol tax credit in 2011. That government handout (which cost taxpayers billions) needlessly drove up food and fuel prices as well as other costs for consumers—many of whom were poor or otherwise disadvantaged. Now the mandate needs to go, so that consumers and the marketplace are the ones who decide the future of ethanol.

But, but, if a rich guy is fighting for there not to be privileges granted by govenment then what are we allgonna do? Hundreds of thousands of jobs as well paid activists, demonstrators, organisers of petitions, demanders of special privileges, all will disappear! For the entire foundation of all of this social justice stuff is that the rich are using government to screw the working stiff. If anyone actually catches on to the idea that  it's people buying privilege from said government that is the problem then where go our careers in campaigning for privilege for our guys from government?

No wonder the activists actually hate the Koch brothers. They're not playing that part assigned to them in the great political kabuki play and by refusing to do so they're putting those lovely careers "influencing " DC at risk.