Rewarding corruption in the free market
March 18, 2008 by Jeet Heer
I’ve gathered together my thoughts on Wall Street Socialism, developed as squibs on this blog, into a National Post op-ed, available here. As they say in the vulger jargon on the blogosphere, this is the money quote:
The current crisis is pregnant with political and economic lessons. The problem with Wall Street Socialism is not just that it’s hypocritical but that it doesn’t go far enough. The Federal Reserve has already tossed a trillion dollars into the market in a futile attempt to stop the current crisis from spreading; much more will be spent before financial health returns.
If we can afford socialism for the rich, we can certainly also have socialism for the poor. If government is needed to bail out the rich in times of crisis, let’s have a more sharply progressives tax structure, so that the beneficiaries of the current system who are so sheltered from risk pay their fair share. If the state is so willing to intervene to protect the financial status quo, there is no justification for the increasing income inequality that has characterized contemporary capitalism.
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