So, socialism, finally. This has got to be up there with the most unlikely developments of the epoch. After the collapse of planned market economies everywhere, the right’s trouncing of the left, the rise of a near-universal awe of the free market, and the triumph of the unimaginably rich, here we are. What we’re talking about isn’t just a stimulus package, but rather an astounding revolution.
The banks are being nationalized. The government is buying up potentially trillions in private assets. We may be seeing the largest expansion of welfare since the advent of the welfare state. And the rich are under house arrest. It doesn’t matter that Wall Street bonuses have been slashed by 44%, the biggest drop in Wall Street history, the president is out wagging his finger at the thieves—and the nation's cheering him.
Nobody is saying boo. (Except Rush Limbaugh—and his saying, whatever he says, seems to have the opposite effect: His harrumphing somehow reaffirms the virtue of the new order.) Or saying socialism. That word that could instantly taint a political career and that has stopped almost every universal health insurance initiative, that word that the Republicans have used for so long to such toxic effect, is still not yet being uttered. But whatever is happening, it ain’t capitalism.
The unexpected willingness of everybody to tolerate, by any other name, the new economics is partly the result of the terrible fearfulness—even worse things could happen if free enterprise is allowed to run amok.
And it is partly because there is some hypnotic quality to the new president. He is so unexpected and anomalous—in addition to unflappable—that all implausible things become potentially plausible.
(AP Images)
But it is partly too that, well, socialism is… welcome. We’re ready for it. Historical inevitability turns out to be inevitable. No doubt we would prefer it not to be called socialism (and hence we aren’t), but we’re eager for the leveling effect.
The pressure of success, of paying mortgages that we can’t afford (or not paying them), of aspiring to homes that are too big, to colleges that won’t let our children in, of everybody’s heath care anxiety, all rolls up into some collective willingness to break the system, or at least not to object too much to the forces that are now transforming it.
At some point, of course, somebody will start to scream the name that can’t be said, but by then it will be too late. The worm turns.
More of Newser founder Michael Wolff's articles and commentary can be found at VanityFair.com, where he writes a regular column. He can be emailed at michael@newser.com
