Corporatist cronyism didn’t come to the United States gradually or inevitably, as Munger and Villareal-Diaz imply. It came during George Washington’s presidency, endured until the relatively laissez-faire period of the Gilded Age, and returned with a vengeance when the Progressive Era inaugurated a new reign of interventionism and cronyism.

Burton W. Folsom, Jr. is a Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College.
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