Corporate looting is not socialism

[llachglin]

With the $700 billion plan for the US government to assume bad debts and the related bailouts that preceded it, a lot of pundits and commentators are claiming that for good or bad, what we are seeing is socialism. It's a pithy way to characterize the hypocrisy of so-called "free market capitalists" clamoring for a handout on the public dime, and

Comments

[llachglin]

Well, if by liberals you mean Democrats in the mold of Robert Rubin who helped get us into this mess, they should be counted with the looters. I also count the media as complicit--particularly the financial media. It's not just that they're selling ads, they're protecting their own way of life.

There are also a lot of Ron Paul Republicans and Libertarians who are throwing the "s" word around, and they mean it literally. But they're trying to protect the mythical "free market" that supposedly underpins their ideology but has very little to do with how the world has ever worked. (Mish, one of the most astute online critics of this financial disaster, is one of these people.)

Sure, liberal bloggers also call it "socialism" out of irony, but they're undermining their own cause.