To adapt the words of composer Frank Wilhoit:
"Crony capitalism consists of but one principle: In-corporations who are protected by regulation, but not bound by it, alongside out-corporations who are bound by regulation, but not protected by it."
"Crony capitalism consists of but one principle: In-corporations who are protected by regulation, but not bound by it, alongside out-corporations who are bound by regulation, but not protected by it."
His sentiments are pressaged by others, including Adam Smith (1776):
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
<https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/>
Or some guy named Matthew, somewhat earlier:
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Matthew was a tax collector, this is literally expert advice, not just one of those religious metaphors.
(Not about Matthew's occupation but the meaning/interpretation of the verse.)
Taking this a step further, it's logical to conclude that society itself is a constant war between rich people, who use their wealth (influence/power) to enlist the poor in their attacks on one another. Taking it another level, we could say that "society" itself is merely a side-effect of this war, in fact it is the current state-of-the-art weapon in this struggle. If something better than capitalistic society comes about (such as, most obviously, human-level AIs and robotics), the rich will not hesitate to abandon the society strategy.
I've quoted the passage, which describes the political balance and division between the optimates, populares, and equites, roughly the oligarchs, labour, and petit bourgousie, in this (now archived) Reddit post:
<https://web.archive.org/web/20230607042525/https://old.reddi...>
The durability of such conflict makes me strongly suspect that this is innate to human polity, and Jones's description of the respective groups' political platforms, concerns, and ideologies strike me as both insightful and possibly innate.
I've mentioned this several times previously on HN:
<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>