[PEN-L:33278] RE: The Economist considers Karl Marx

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:33277] The Economist considers Karl Marx

I wrote: >>in common parlance, even among many economists, "socialism" refers to any government "interference" in the so-called "free market."<<

JKS writes:>Well, there's no helping the economists, they're dunderheads anyway, but that's not common parlance outside the loony right wing. The judges I clerked for were all New Deal liberals (even though one of them was/is a Repug), and all of them believe in extensive govt regulation of the economy, and would say so, and all of them would have a heart attack if you called them a socialist. <

but just as the lunatics have taken over the asylum, the looney right wing has taken over the conciousness of much of the US citizenry (at least here in SoCal), along with taking over more and more of the judiciary every day.

Of course, in _practice_, there's an amendment that should be made: if the government intervention directly and materially helps businesses, it's not "socialism" but is part of "laissez-faire." This amendment reflects the common contrast between laissez-faire theory (no guvmint!) and laizzez-faire practice (guvmint should help biz, in public/private partnerships). 

>> Even some socialists see "socialism" as merely referring to state ownership of the means of production, not caring who or what owns the state. <<

>There's a big diff between interference so called and ownership, even if the ownership is merely public and not democratic.<

yes, but in much of popular consciousness, state ownership is simply further down the spectrum from state intervention in the "free" market. It's a matter of quantitative change becoming qualitative.

Jim