John DeMott, a veteran Time writer, wrote the story, and did a good job, and I edited it. But as I read the reports from Burton, I was struck by the Philippine distortion of the capitalist system. This was not capitalism. It was a weird distortion of the free market that benefited a few and kept the masses in poverty. The cronies got rich, and the poor stayed poor. So early that morning I wrote the headline: “A Case of Crony Capitalism.” I have always been a sucker for alliteration. The article appeared in the issue of April 21, 1980.

Via George Taber: The Night I Invented Crony Capitalism @ Penn.edu.