In the letter below, a response to Daniel Henninger’s Wall Street Journal column last Thursday, the writer makes a number of important points, including that what is usually called “crony capitalism” these days is properly termed “fascism.”
The letter:
“Capitalism’s Corruptions” is a bad title. Those who endorse free-market capitalism and capitalism’s devotion to integrity and a reliance on trust, rather than regulation by and the authority of government, must counter Orwellian attempts to defame capitalism by associating capitalism with cronyism or being “probusiness.” As Mr. Henninger correctly writes, “corruption kills capitalism.” What he neglects to say is that capitalism drives out corruption. In truth, the intellectual battle of ideas is between capitalism and fascism. But fascism, in which the government directs or controls the economy (without necessarily owning the means of production), is seldom mentioned because terms like “crony capitalism” are misused in fascism’s place. Let’s expose crony capitalism for the fascism it is, not aid its spread by keeping it camouflaged as some amorphous form of its antidote, capitalism.
Clifford Sondock
Jericho, N.Y.
