The choice of title is interesting, if a bit misleading, so I'm gonna run with this. It's often suggested that there are two types of capitalism: one productive

The choice of title is interesting, if a bit misleading, so I'm gonna run with this. It's often suggested that there are two types of capitalism: one productive, competitive and free -- the other gripped with cronyism, protectionism, and exploitation. I don't buy that. There is just one type of capitalism, and while at times it may look more like one or the other of these poles, it always tends toward the latter: monopolistic, state-sanctioned "crony capitalism" that puts allows business owners to prioritize their own profits over the collective good. That's not to say that the sky is always falling: Scandinavian countries enjoy healthy markets and don't have absurd corporate welfare, for instance, it's just that the incentives for "good capitalists" to become cronyists are always present. The problem with the "two types" thinking is that it is always in a person's a person's best interest to get something for free. Ironically, this rhetoric is often used by capitalists, fearful that leftism might become effective, by claiming their opponents are the ones who want free stuff. There are lots of ways to get things for free. For instance, you can steal your workers time and fail to compensate them (common in fast food), you can coerce a government into cooperation ("We'll move to India if you don't give us the tax breaks") or you can campaign to get your friends into the government. The fallacy of libertarianism is a belief that capitalists don't want a state mechanism with the power to tax and regulate. That is exactly what capitalists want. They're given state protection via a police or military force, state welfare through tax write-offs and incentives, power and influence in crafting legislation that fits your worldview, and less turbulent markets due to stifling of demand. The alternative is Hobbes' "short, nasty, brutish" life - duking it out eternally trying to achieve efficiency instead of excess, competing endlessly, only to profit in the slightest. It's often said that "it's in our nature to be competitive" but it's also in our nature to be cooperative, and corporations display this fact amazingly well- they use collective influence and power in numbers to achieve ends that small businesses never could. Until people outside of that system learn to cooperate well enough to bargain for their own interests (e.g. Labor movements), it's going to be smooth sailing for the "crony" capitalists.