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Comment by sayhar | Hacker News Reader

> The US constantly beats the capitalism drum, and that's fine. But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.

For many of us, "capitalism" involves precisely this -- the wealthy using their wealth and power to cement their position.

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The correct definition is "cronyism", not "capitalism".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

Leninism/Stalinism/those fucking Trots/Maoism isn't true Communism.

It isn't. It is state capitalism. It is still capitalism.

If pure capitalism isn't robust enough that it won't devolve into cronyism then it's just as worthless an ideology as "communism", and for much the same reason. It's not enough that something sounds good and works in theory - humans have to be able to implement it too.

For many of us, "capitalism" involves precisely this

That's not capitalism at all. That's just corruption / cronyism and it can live "on top of" any economic system.

The lines between national interests, immigration restrictions, inherited wealth and cronyism are very blurry though, and not just empirically or historically.

Fair enough.

But let me ask you this: Why is the government helping large corporations to cheat more than small or medium companies? Even if we decide cheating is acceptable, shouldn't everyone be on an even footing in terms of this type of help?

Seems like the ultimate result is the big get bigger while the small get smaller.

The large corporations give more campaign donations (bribes) to the individuals who make up the political class, which gives the large corporations massive preference when their interests are addressed. Large donations equals political preferences made into reality. Our reality is a result of this going on for almost a century. It is this simple.

I agree, but I can't help thinking that the sheer scale/shamelessness of corporate bribery is a recent phenomenon.

Never mind that anyone in office can trade on info gleamed while there without being slapped for insider trading, iirc...

This is true. They removed the exception of insider trading for Congress a few years ago, but put it right back in a year or two later. It's disgusting.

capitalism, if you're not cheating you're not trying.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

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