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there's nothing even unusual about mixed state/private economic sectors in a capitalist context. in fact, if you think about it, capitalism isn't a thing--it's a system of production and ownership, which are at the center of broader modes of social reproduction or control. what capitalism looks like in any given space is a function of the histories of that shape it, that it shapes, etc.
so there are many varieties of capitalism: in a sense there's nothing but versions of it.
this "definition" of capitalism as involving "free markets" is just another version. the collapse of moral categories into ways of thinking about this social system are nothing more than aspects of the histories of american-style capitalism(s) that are one of many contextual factors that shape where we've collectively landed in the states today.
if you say that state action in a market context is socialism, you're making a statement that's only valid within a particular set of political contexts. outside them, it's meaningless.
what's finished is neoliberalism--in this, krugman's right.
one of the many problems facing the states at the moment--and here more than most places i think--is that neoliberals are ideologically opposed to state action in the economy, so if they find themselves in a position such that reality forces them to act otherwie, they do not know what to do. it's outside their worldview and so can't help but be incoherent. which is, i think, what we're seeing.
folk should hope that obama is much more a social democrat than the retro-nature of us mass politics lets him say he is.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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