Weeds and rubble cover 90 acres along Long Island Sound. A room with cinder-block walls sits locked in an empty in Brooklyn basement. And a gleaming industrial palace has failed to bring jobs to the banks of Ohio's Mahoning River.
These are
monuments to failed central planning. Eminent domain, state and local subsides,
and federal-corporate partnerships have yielded these lifeless fruits, failing
to deliver the rebirth, community benefits and jobs they promise — but
succeeding in delivering profits to the companies that lobby for them.
The economic
philosophy at work here isn't capitalism or socialism. It's corporatism: the
belief that government and business should work together. You could describe
corporatism as the view that profits provided by the market aren't sufficient
motivation for business, so government must put some icing on top. From another
perspective, corporatism is government's attempt to harness the profit motive
for the goals of policymakers: let industry row the ship while politicians
steer.
Often, the
corporatist ship founders on the rocks of false promises.....To Read More...
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