yes Orwell was a Socialist.
I believe, in our hearts, we're all socialists to a certain extent. If your not, then send back your social security check, give up your medicare benefits and refuse to claim your mortgage tax deduction.
Years ago, I learned a valuable lesson from a college professor when he asked the class:
"What's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?"
We all attempted to offer him the canned responses about centralized economic control over free market forces only to have tell us that's not the true nature of either philosophy.
He told us that
"the difference between Capitalism and Communism is that Capitalism is a system where man exploits man..
With Communism it's the other way around... "
Obviously there was a lot of discussion over what he said, but it's stuck with me to this day.
And it's helped me to recognize that economic systems are really about power and money (sometimes interchangeable), as well who benefits the most from it.
It has made me wonder why we choose certain economic systems via our political process and why people tolerate a tyranny of the free markets versus a tyranny of centralized government control.
We choose our economic system here in the US by how we vote. There are those politicians who argue for free markets, but then recognize the political impossibility when those markets create massive chaos in the lives of the people who elect them to office. But then there are politicians who argue for more government intervention into the economy, but find themselves facing the opposition of voters who are crushed by the taxes required to finance it.
But at least we have a choice. In those countries where economic systems are chosen by the power elite, it generally results in exploitation of the citizens of that country.
The free markets, combined with decreased banking regulation, and insane predatory lending practices, created this real-estate bubble we see collapsing around us. We permitted banks to become intwined with trillions of dollars in notionally valued Credit Default Swaps, all completely unregulated except between parties who executed them.
Sure, we can find a multitude of other influences, but the collapse of the housing market is what has set the dominoes a tumblin'. And that collapse was set in place due to turning debt instruments into stocks via securitization in the interest of spreading business risk to investors interested in short-term gain and not long term value.
As I heard a pundit say on CNBC earlier, Billions were made by people who manipulated and shorted the MBS and CDS markets below reasonable downside expectations, and hundreds of millions will be made on the upside as those "mark to market" losses are written UP in subsequent quarters are liquidity returns to these depressed markets.
So, as someone who is opposed to pure Capitalism as I am to pure Marxism, I recognize that when private markets fail, their must be some form of prudent public intervention. And likewise, when public markets fail to provide services in a cost-effective manner, private market options must be explored and encouraged.
If that makes me a socialist, so be it. I just perceive it as being pragmatic since I want an economic system to serve to better the lives of the people of this country, not just make a small percentage of people wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.
Hawk |
