“When Judge Richard Posner, the prolific conservative intellectual, released his book A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent Into Depression last year, you might have thought the final verdict was in: Capitalism caused the economic downturn and high unemployment….”
“But what exactly is this “capitalism” that is blamed?”
“The word “capitalism” is used in two contradictory ways. Sometimes it’s used to mean the free market, or laissez faire. Other times it’s used to mean today’s government-guided economy. Logically, “capitalism” can’t be both things. Either markets are free or government controls them. We can’t have it both ways.”
“The truth is that we don’t have a free market—government regulation and management are pervasive—so it’s misleading to say that “capitalism” caused today’s problems. The free market is innocent.”
John Stossel makes a critique of interventionism & the mised economy @ http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/14/lets-take-the-crony-out-of-cro