Sheldon Richman’s Freeman column today is a brain teaser. He quotes extensively from a “forgotten critic of corporatism” and tells us who it is only at the end of the piece.

Many modern-day corporatists (that is, those who embrace the idea of government supporting select businesses and industries) speak as if our many economic troubles stem from capitalism. As Richman frequently observes, however, we haven’t had anything close to capitalism (laissez-faire) for a very long time and this article supports his argument. The US was deep into crony capitalism back in the 1880s.