Opinion

Ahoy! It’s crony capitalism sailing in and out of U.S. ports.

Wesley Jones, a Republican U.S. senator from Washington, 1909-1932, should be canonized as the patron saint of industrial policy. His contribution to such mischief, which is enjoying a rebirth of respectability, is in its second century of doing damage.

His advocacy of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, a.k.a. the Jones Act, included the usual cant about serving national security and the public interest generally. The act began, however, as garden-variety political parochialism. It survives because it is defended by the “reliance interests” — industries tethered to government favoritism — that industrial policy, a.k.a. protectionism or crony capitalism, invariably produces.