Holcombe is Professor of Economics at Florida State University, past President of the Public Choice Society, and past President of the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, and Associated Scholar of the Mises Institute.
This an important and timely book. Political Capitalism is a distinct economic system and it is displacing Market Capitalism. It is a form of Statism that allows those with connections to profit from government intervention.
Holcombe draws heavily on his knowledge of public choice theory to explain how some — the well-connected, the political and economic elite — use the political process to benefit themselves at the expense of others.
He traces the problem on the growth of Progressive Democracy, that justifies imposing costs on some to benefit others. According to Holcombe, what government does is a bigger problem than how big it is.
Holcombe says:
“Nobody overtly champions political capitalism, cronyism, and corruption. But some of capitalism’s greatest enemies are capitalists themselves. They argue for regulatory barriers to protect their markets, for trade barriers to protect themselves from foreign competition, for tax breaks, and for subsidies. Most of the time, when people claim to be pro-business, the policies they advocate are anti-capitalism.
One of my motives in writing the book was to try to get supporters of free markets to focus more on the negative impacts of the regulatory state, which lies at the foundation of political capitalism. I’m no fan of the welfare state, but the welfare state is not the biggest threat to a market economy. Supporters of free markets should understand that the threats to capitalism do not come so much from how big government is but from what government does. The regulatory state is much more of a threat to free markets than the budgetary state.”
Political Capitalism: How Political Influence Is Made and Maintained (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society) by Randall Holcombe:
A shorter version came out in an article a few years ago in the Cato Institute’s Journal:
https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/winter-2015/political-capitalism
Holcombe´s recent conference at the Mises Institute “Capitalists, Not Socialists, Pose the Greatest Threat to Capitalism”:
https://mises.org/library/political-capitalism-how-economic-and-political-power-made-and-maintained
A Holcombe´s blog post on his book: