Ever wonder what crony capitalism would look like as an action-figure commercial?

Meet the Kronies.

The parody turns political connections, government favors and protected profits into a toy line. Big-G leads a team whose competitive advantage has very little to do with competing.

The joke centers on a free-market critique of crony capitalism. Businesses gain advantages through political connections instead of winning customers in an open market.

Meet Big-G and the Kronies

Big-G leads a collection of characters with names that make their targets difficult to miss.

There is Kaptain Korn, Parts & Labor, Bankor the Prophet and Ariel Stryker. Together, they tap into the mysterious G-Force.

That gives them considerably more power than anything in the action-figure aisle usually offers.

As the creators put it, the Kronies are busy “Mandating, Tarrify-ing, Inflating, and Boondoggling” their way to profits through their special connection to the G-Force.

In other words, why spend all that time building a better mousetrap? Just get Washington to make the competing mousetraps more expensive.

Crony Capitalism Gets the Saturday-Morning Treatment

The video packages subsidies, tariffs, regulations, bailouts and political favoritism as a Saturday-morning toy commercial.

As a result, the joke reaches beyond one political party. Its target is the relationship between political power and businesses willing to use that power against competitors.

Not every government policy deserves the crony-capitalism label. However, the basic argument behind the parody is easy to follow.

A free market rewards companies for winning customers. Cronyism rewards whoever can secure the most useful political connection.

The Kronies clearly prefer the second option.

Watch the action figures go to work in the video above. After all, why beat the competition when you can just get konnected?