Philosopher George Santayana warned decades ago that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and that certainly rings true with that scourge of free enterprise called corporate welfare or crony capitalism—cozy relationships between government and business designed to thwart competition and ease the way toward success for a favored few. Americans have had a long history of cronyism going back at least to the Boston Tea Party.
We remember from history, of course, that the colonists protested British taxation for years. But most Americans don’t remember that the Boston Harbor event was actually a protest over a large tax cut. That tax cut affected one company alone: the East India Company, or EIC, which was given dispensation from all taxes on tea it imported into the colonies. This allowed the EIC to undercut prices and guaranteed it a virtual monopoly, putting other importers and American tea merchants at a distinct disadvantage. Corporate welfare was at the heart of this tax cut. The EIC was heavily in debt, and the British Parliament viewed it as too big to fail. Cheaper tea, Parliament reasoned, would both bail out the company and benefit the colonists. But colonists were outraged over this special treatment and proceeded with their protest, dumping the EIC’s tea into Boston Harbor.
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