Crony capitalism. Government at all levels controls about 40% of our GDP. We are on the road to fascism.
Crony capitalism. Government at all levels controls about 40% of our GDP. We are on the road to fascism.
You might find this interesting or not:
Shortly after the Soviet Union fell, I interviewed a former KGB agent who told me that they lost the Cold War because they had no answer for our defense contracting system.
No one could possibly deny the influence of cronyism during that period of federal (revolving door) contracting. But the system remained viable in that competitiveness was intense and oversight too (both inside the government and from a more reliable media).
It could be argued that even cronyism is value-neutral. After all, the ultimate metric of the Cold War (to borrow from Reagan) is that “we won and they lost.”
Shortly after 9/11 and the formation of homeland security as a wartime contracting operation, a lot of the old Cold War ethic seemed to return with a Manhattan Project-like feel to what was going on in DC. The chamber of commerce was part of that at the very least as a “facilitator.”
Since then, I sense there has been some drift or what they call “mission creep.”
Obama’s reliance on the Marxist “commissar system” in which politics trumps all could ironically end up making us the Soviets and give the entrepreneurial terrorists the edge we once had. After all, wasn’t bin Laden the ultimate venture capitalist and KSM the brilliant crony contractor?
One thing I’m (cynically) sure of: the cronyism will always be there to some extent.