Hunter Lewis is co-founder of AgainstCronyCapitalism.org. He is co-founder and former CEO of global investment firm Cambridge Associates, LLC and author of eight books on moral philosophy, psychology, and economics, including the widely acclaimed Are the Rich Necessary? (“Highly provocative and highly pleasurable.”—New York Times) He has contributed to the New York Times, the Times of London, the Washington Post, and the Atlantic Monthly, as well as numerous websites such as Forbes.com and RealClearMarkets.com.
Editor’s Note: We add one caveat to this excellent perspective from Hunter Lewis: If you are a crony capitalist in California, and you are lobbying the politicians for government contracts and favorable legislation – then you are also lobbying the public sector unions who control these politicians. At a minimum, most of California’s major corporations...
By Hunter Lewis
Editor’s Note: This article by “Against Crony Capitalism” co-founder Hunter Lewis emphasizes again the irony of trying to legislate private sector compensation. Because the sentiment behind these policies – wanting to elevate the economic status of lower income workers and their communities – is inherently in conflict with the outcome. When minimum wages are raised,...
By Hunter Lewis
The basic premise behind public employee financed campaigns is that the election is now while the bills may be deferred for years, particularly if they take the form of pension promises. Eventually, however, the bills do come due. This is why Governor Mitch Daniels (R-Indiana) said he decided on his first day of office in...
By Hunter Lewis
Part 1 of 2: Fifty years after President Johnson launched his “war on poverty,” it is time to stop pretending and start doing something real for the poor. Mitt Romney said during the 2012 presidential campaign: “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix...
By Hunter Lewis
Before discussing how Big Food operates today, let’s take a moment to look back at how agriculture operated in the US South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Viola Goode Liddell, daughter of a cotton salesman, described the system: When an Black Belt farmer sent his cotton down river to Mobile, he . . . had to take what he...
By Hunter Lewis
Editor’s Note: This essay by John Goodman makes explicit, in the context of the federal passage of the Affordable Healthcare Act, a phenomenon that is alive and growing in California. We usually call it corporatism, or crony-capitalism, but the endpoint of the trends, usually described using euphemisms, is economic fascism. Where communism might be correctly...
By Hunter Lewis