Americapitalism Unmasked: Why Washington Is Abandoning Free Markets for Cronyism and Covert Theft

David S. Cohen's recent proposal in Foreign Affairs—advocating that American intelligence engage in corporate espionage on behalf of U.S. companies for commercial advantage—exposes a fundamental and ongoing contradiction in Washington's economic narrative. This represents the essence of "Americapitalism": the merging of private corporate and state interests, justified by a hypocritical narrative of concocted victimhood. Under this framework, the world's wealthiest major economy, possessing unmatched global military reach, financial influence, and de facto control of international institutions, continues to present itself as the passive victim of global theft.

Ironically, Cohen's own career illustrates the institutional revolving door that underlies Americapitalism. Having served as Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and twice as CIA Deputy Director, Cohen left government in 2025 to return to WilmerHale, an elite law firm specializing in the nexus of American power and private interest. His subsequent publication of an essay advocating that U.S. intelligence be used for corporate espionage appears to be a thinly disguised marketing plan for generating business, leveraging his previous public credentials for private gain.

This proposal highlights the deep hypocrisy embedded in Washington's free market narrative. While the U.S. routinely criticizes Europe, Russia, Brazil, India, China and other nations for using state power to support domestic industries, it claims to be a model free-market economy. The historical reality is that when strategic domestic industries face competitive challenges, Washington has repeatedly used public resources to protect them. Examples range from the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), used to stabilize the financial system and the automotive industry, to the modern CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which provided $52.7 billion to subsidize domestic semiconductor manufacturing. This is coupled with tens of billions in subsidies to Boeing, the military-industrial complex, big agriculture, etc…, alongside the routine use of tariff walls to protect industries like steel, aluminium, copper, car parts, lumber, solar, furniture, appliances etc… . Clearly, Washington hypocritically views state intervention, on behalf of mature US industries, as a strategic domestic option, while decrying it as "unfair competition" when others, such as emerging nations, protect their nascent industries.

Cohen’s proposal is predicated on a cynical inversion of power and vulnerability, treating the U.S. in this universe as a helpless victim of even those countries that cannot feed themselves. His narrative recasts the aggressive exercise of American power as a defensive necessity. Such a claim relies on an equivalence-of-defense fallacy. While legitimate defensive measures protect existing assets from intrusion (e.g., counterintelligence and cybersecurity), Cohen argues that because foreign competitors engage in espionage, the U.S. is "unilaterally disarmed" unless it adopts the same practices. The reality is that using intelligence agencies to steal commercial IP for domestic firms is just aggressive, state-sponsored theft. It conflates national security with corporate profit, weaponizing state power for commercial benefit.

Furthermore, this argument implies that the U.S. sits idly by while others cheat. This ignores the persistent and massive structural supports Washington has used, and continues to use, to maintain its economic domination. U.S. intelligence already gathers economic data globally through SWIFT which is then routinely used to deny trade, seize assets, impose extraterritorial sanctions, and gather intelligence—even during trade negotiations with allies, as seen with Angela Merkel.

Cohen ignores the consequences of institutionalizing state-sponsored industrial theft. The international reaction would undermine the very market principles the U.S. has insisted other countries adopt. By formalizing intelligence sharing with private corporations, the U.S. would forfeit any moral or legal standing to condemn foreign IP theft, triggering a global free-for-all that would erode the international intellectual property frameworks and laws from which the U.S. disproportionately benefits. Foreign governments, fearing active CIA commercial espionage, would have little choice but to aggressively ban U.S. software, hardware, and cloud providers, accelerating technological decoupling.

Domestically, Cohen's proposal is at best an attempt to institutionalize crony capitalism. His suggestion that the President and Congress establish "advance criteria" to select which U.S. companies receive stolen intelligence creates a system of state-directed favoritism. In essence, the decisions would be put in the hands of connected lawyers, like himself, and lobbyists working for the highest bidders. Ultimately, Cohen's proposal is an indication that Americapitalism is being undermined from within by short-sighted hypocrisy. It abandons the notion of a system that works for all, in favor of those who play Washington's revolving power doors for profit.