'Donald Trump, Crony Capitalist'

Luigi Zingales:

Donald Trump, Crony Capitalist: Four years ago, in the first draft of my book “A Capitalism for the People,” I had a section dedicated to how worrisome a Donald J. Trump presidential bid would be for America. I was not prescient. It’s just that having grown up in Italy, I knew how a real estate tycoon — in this case, Silvio Berlusconi — whose career exemplified crony capitalism could become the leader of supposed pro-market forces, and I knew what it meant for the country.

I cut this section after being told that my point was irrelevant: In America, there was no chance that a character like Mr. Trump would ever be seriously considered as a candidate.

Then 2016 happened. ...

Mr. Trump ... is, in short, the essence of that commingling of big business and government that goes under the name of crony capitalism. ...