In late 2016 former governor Sarah Palin accused president-elect Donald Trump of taking part in crony capitalism, this was following the deal Trump made with an air conditioning company to keep a number of jobs in the United States. Many believe Trump used his new powers to sway the deal, which involved $7 million dollars in incentives to the company. This outwardly has the potential to stray into favoritism; the basis of crony capitalism. So what exactly is crony capitalism?
2016年底，前州長薩拉·佩林指責當選總統唐納德·特朗普參與裙帶資本主義，此前，特朗普與一家空調公司達成協議，在美國保留大量工作崗位。許多人認為，特朗普利用他的新權力左右了這筆交易，這筆交易涉及向該公司提供700萬美元的獎勵措施。這在表面上有可能誤入偏袒；即裙帶關系資本主義的基礎。那么，裙帶資本主義到底是什么？
Well, the term is generally defined as businesses which benefit from favoritism by government officials. There are varying forms of the practice, and can be most easily understood in terms of "economic rent". This term refers to the difference in what an industry or business would normally be able to earn in a free market, and what they are able to earn as a result of government influence.
這個詞一般被定義為受益于政府官員偏袒的企業。操作的形式多種多樣，而用術語“經濟租金”來解釋是最容易被理解的。這一術語指的是，一個行業或企業在正常情況下在自由市場上能夠賺取多少利潤，與它們在政府影響下能夠賺取多少利潤之間的差異。
An easy to understand example is the system of Taxis versus car-sharing services like Lyft or Uber. In certain areas, car-sharing is cheaper because effectively anybody can drive, whereas to drive a taxi you need an expensive license, called a medallion, which are limited in number. The medallion system is an artificial method of increasing the "economic rent", or price, of the service, so that drivers don't have to compete, and the barrier to entry is very high. Car sharing represents the free market, while Taxi medallions exist as a form of crony capitalism.
一個容易理解的例子是出租車與來福車或優步等汽車共享服務這一系統的競爭。在某些地區，汽車共享更便宜，因為實際上任何人都可以駕駛，而要想駕駛出租車的話，你需要一個被稱為“大獎章”的昂貴牌照，而牌照數量還是有限的。獎章制度是一種人為提高服務“經濟租金”或價格的方法，這樣司機就不必競爭，而且進入門檻很高。汽車共享代表自由市場，而出租車大獎章則作為裙帶資本主義的一種形式。
In many countries, certain industries are considered to be "economically rent-heavy", including casinos, oil and gas, real estate, telecommunications and others. These industries can get tax breaks or special legal treatment as a result of lobbying, unionizing, and sometimes even outright corruption.
在許多國家，某些行業被認為是“經濟租金高昂”，包括賭場、石油和天然氣、房地產、電信業和其他行業。這些行業可以通過游說、組織工會，有時甚至是徹頭徹尾的腐敗，來獲得減稅或特殊法律待遇。
In 2016, the Economist released a list of the countries suffering from crony capitalism the most. By calculating the wealth of billionaires within those industries, as compared to the overall GDP, the disproportion of "economic rent" becomes clear. Topping the list is Russia, which sees roughly 18% of the country's GDP in the hands of billionaires in crony industries. This figure is considerably higher than any other country on the list, and stems from the unique combination of Russia being a major world power, with a history of government favoritism.
2016年，《經濟學人》發布了一份遭受裙帶資本主義影響最為嚴重的國家名單。通過計算這些行業內億萬富翁的財富，與總體國內生產總值相比，“經濟租金”的比例明顯失調。位列名單首位的是俄羅斯，該國約18%的GDP掌握在裙帶行業的億萬富翁手中。這一數字遠遠高于名單上的任何其他國家，這是因為俄羅斯是世界大國的獨特組合，它一直有著政府偏袒傾向的歷史。
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