That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax, usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while pretending to exemplify it.
[celine]
Political capitalism is my term for what anarcho-capitalists call "State Capitalism" -- government run for the benefit of private capitalists.
(I use the term 'political capitalism' in part to contrast political means with economic means, and in part to avoid confusion with the term 'State Capitalism' as it was used by anti-Soviet leftists, who claimed that the Soviet Union could not properly be seen as communist or even anti-capitalist because the state monopoly had taken over the role of the capitalist in exploiting the proletariat, rather than abolishing the role and liberating the proletariat.)
Political capitalism is anti-competitive because established capitalists use the coercive power of the State to curtail entrepreneurial competition. Notice that political capitalism is incompatible with a free market.
bkMarcus, Reluctant Capitalist
[bk]
(Contrast with IDEOLOGICAL CAPITALISM.)
(Contrast with ECONOMIC CAPITALISM.)
(Imperialism, mercantilism, protectionism, and statist, so-called "free trade" treaties (e.g., NAFTA) are all examples of political capitalism. So is "Corporate Capitalism": the State-sanctioned corporation is a legal fiction created to shield individual persons from responsibility for the actions of the entity that generates their profits.)
[bk]
Thatcherism is all too similar to Reaganism: free-market rhetoric masking statist content.
Murray N. Rothbard,
Making Economic Sense,
Chapter 62:Mrs. Thatcher's Poll Tax
[rothbard]
Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laissez-faire capitalism. Big business supports a form of state capitalism in which government and big business act as partners.
[...]
This is not to say that economic bigness is bad. It isn't, if it results from economic efficiency. But it is bad if it results from collusion with political, rather than with economic power.
Karl Hess, "The Death of Politics", Playboy, March 1969
[karlHess]