I consider myself a free market believer. Commerce should be conducted with minimal regulation from government. Give me enough regulation to provide a level and legal playing field. Extortion and price-fixing is out, safety of all workers is in. Give me credit for innovating and a punish me for discriminating. Beyond that I want government regulation out of my way. Don't cap my profit margins, dictate my salaries, limit where I can sell my product, take my employees for recognition, or challenge my mode of transportation.
What is being witnessed in the present market conditions, in my opinion, could be considered steps toward socialism. How the business environment got here is a combination of more factors than we would want to believe. Take the situation with mortgages on private residences. I will not call it a housing crisis because we are not short of houses for people to live in. I will also not call it a mortgage crisis because a fair amount of people don't have problems with their present mortgage or getting a new mortgage. My unofficial survey of everyone I asked (I'll admit the sample set is not large enough and the self validated responses cannot be confirmed) shows that no one has a crisis in their mortgage. What does exist is a confluence of good ideas and bad execution. For a timely and wide reaching re-cap of all of these factors check out this item from Time Magazine "Blameworthy - 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis" and this series from The New York Times "The Reckoning".
Keep in mind that socialism is, technically speaking, the step in between capitalism and communism. Will there be a full blow revolution in the United States leading to the fall of our government and a classless society? I don't believe it possible, but one guy predicts disaster of the U.S. in 2010 (surprise, he may know the U.S. better that we know ourselves). In the meantime, we can read editorials lamenting the social costs of bailouts .
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