Thanks to Dr. Shawn Ritenour for sharing this article by the Acton Institute’s Samuel Gregg, published by The American Spectator.

“Crony capitalism is about hollowing-out market economies and replacing them with what may be described as political markets.

In political markets, the focus is no longer upon prospering through creating, refining, and offering products and services at competitive prices. Instead, economic success depends upon people’s ability to harness government power to stack the economic deck in their favor. While the market’s outward form is maintained, its essential workings are supplanted by the struggle to ensure that governments, legislators, and regulators favor you at other people’s expense. In that sense, crony capitalism certain constitutes a form of redistribution: away from taxpayers, consumers and business focused on creating wealth, and towards the organized, powerful, and politically-connected.”