Consider this working definition of crony capitalism:
Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.
Crony capitalism is believed to arise when business cronyism and related self-serving behavior by businesses or businesspeople spills over into politics and government, or when self-serving friendships and family ties between businessmen and the government influence the economy and society to the extent that it corrupts public-serving economic and political ideals.
These preferential arrangements of white-collar welfare are, of course, the dark alternative to genuinely free markets in capital, labor, and goods.
When American parents raise a child, they seldom say, “I hope you grow to be a manipulative huckster, taking so much as you can by manipulating government into preferential deals for yourself and your friends.”
There are few people – and no honest, decent ones – who would hope this for themselves or their children.
And yet, and yet, there are such avaricious and undeserving people, with even a few being too many for the damage they cause to a community’s politics and economy.
Whitewater’s slow evolution has passed from the ‘end of the beginning’ into a middle time, likely to last for several years (as did the earlier, beginning period).
A debate and battle over cronyism and undeserved, preferential treatment, of attempts to manipulate the city’s politics and her economy for private gain, will occupy much of this middle period.
No part of that debate will be easy; all of it will be necessary.