Capitalism is an ideology and, like many ideologies, it requires multiple factors that only exist in a textbook to ensure it works 100 percent of the time with 100 percent efficiency. Perfect competition is one example of this economic thought. Perfect competition requires multiple businesses providing a similar product competitively in order to drive the price of their product down to a natural price floor. There are some examples of this in reality that merit value, such as crops in America all essentially being the same price through various vendors, with the only difference being shipping costs. However, one part of capitalism that is not one of its tenets is crony-capitalism, popularly known as corporatism.
Unlike capitalism, where the sole point of the ideal is profit, proficiency and the most efficient use of resources, corporatism is the use of profit and resources to ensure a monopoly on a product and use laws to limit competition, such as funding a politician’s campaign on the crux of raising taxes on new businesses. This is commonly referred to in the media as “BigAg,” “BigPharma” or just “the 1 percent.” Corporatism is a result of capitalism when a federal government has central planning as large as ours. The main function of corporatism is government, meaning that it is not capitalist ideals to blame for corporatism but the way governmental business is conducted. Governments make a trade with corporations—resources for influence, money for campaigns or laws made to limit competition in return for a business’ investment.
Our current government operates under the political ideology of democracy. No one blames, with good right, the ideology of democracy for the current under-the-table and illegal dealings from government, such as the current abuses of power from police across the country or the National Security Agency. Instead, it is explained that while the ideology of democracy is a sound 21st century thought, our current crony-democracy is due to the overwhelming joined power of “cronyist” individuals and corporatist organizations. For this reason, capitalism also should not be blamed for the corporatists that ruin its ideology. Instead, it should be realized that it is the cronyism of both our U.S. government and large corporations such as BigPharma who spoil the ideology that is, otherwise, a sound 21st century thought.
