Good comments on corporatism. ProfElwood— I would just add that the domination takes place via industry lobbyists who blanket Capitol Hill when a major piece of legislation is pending. The number of lobbyists in Washington continues to multiply and influence legislators in a way that consumers rarely do. This is one reason the Democrats are having so much trouble currently getting the public option through.

As long as it is legal for lobbyists to form PACs that hold campaign fundraisers for these pols,, it will be difficult to affect any major change in governments role in health care.

“corporatism”

which isn't etymologically shackled by equivocation to the role played necessarily in it by corporations, but because of what it actually means, based on “corpus” (“body”), or as someone (Tugwell) described the evolution of things in the USA, what has emerged is “an organic whole, controlled by advanced arts of administration.” Whew — sounds heady, but spooky when you think about it for a moment longer.

Note that it simply looks more leftish if the likes of Ralph Nader and others were to have their way with what goes beyond the sinister stuff ObamaCo has done now: What about federal corporate charters, and installation of (more) federal officials and federal control over directorship and control of business, as well as shareholder activism (“social responsibility,” PC political idiocy in place of business objectives) and the prospect of the federal government as an even larger, mammoth, institutional shareholder (above and beyond the mischief the state government retirees' groups and “public interest” leftist groups can do)? In fact, the prospect of Washington as a mammoth shareholder in equity (and perhaps debt) securities of US corporations (and maybe others) was a serious threat and basis for rejection of the Bush “private account” still-a-federal-program Social Security reform effort.

It means redefining “liberalism” once more to being classic liberalism, nowadays called libertarianism.

(It does not mean expanding the misuse of “rights” to mean even more claims on others, such as to revive the crusade not only for public health care but a guaranteed minimum income, for example, and other radical reaches during the 1960s.)

But by ceding all talk of “liberty” and “freedom” to conservatives liberals immediately place themselves on the rhetorical defensive. And that makes liberals more vulnerable to things like the Tea Partiers and the town hall hecklers.

A population’s standard of living is the key to a nation’s legitimacy. Currently the United States is fourth or sixth depending on whether or not you include healthcare in the formula. It is also interesting to note that we are steadily descending rather than climbing. Considering our massive resources and gigantic GNP, our low standard of living in comparison is indicative of an inequality in wealth distribution.

When business leaders take tens of millions of dollars from company employees for their own salaries after losing money for investors with their self promotions and laughable business decisions, then it is not difficult to see where these inequalities of national wealth distribution lay.

This sick excuse for a conservative philosophy called Social Darwinism, that began bastardizing the Republican party after Lincoln and alienated great, (if bombastic), national leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt would be half believable if fully practiced by conservatives themselves. It is NOT and therefore Social Darwinism is false and merely a propaganda tool for denying the opportunities our nation’s basic freedom creates, from those whom need it most. I suppose in this the “I got mine screw you” Republican crowd effectively dilute and/or eliminate competition for themselves and especially their offspring. The Bush family comes to mind specifically as an example of spoiled privilege and what damage it can do to a country.

Conservatives blame our national problems on government, blame it on liberals, blame it on the poor social behaviors of the various races or ethnicities, blame it on whatever, but in fact it is the direct fault of our greedy and self centered business leaders that are indisputably responsible for our nations steady demise.

So, what is the biggest difference between classical liberalism – or libertarianism -and modern liberalism? It’s the state. Libertarians take an orthodox approach to Lockeanism. Any form of property privately held is, by definition, a citadel of liberty. Government, by its very coercive nature, is a natural enemy of liberty – including especially economic liberty.

But modern liberals – like Progressives, Populists, Radical Republicans, Jacksonians and Whigs before them – view absolute property rights as detrimental to human liberty.

So what is the difference between socialism and modern liberalism regarding property rights? Seems like its just as close to Socialism as to classical Liberalism if not closer.

It is absolutely critical for liberals to reclaim the classical origins of its worldview. Liberals cannot cede the language of “liberty” and “freedom” to conservatives, who often hide their plutocratic sensibilities under the cover of libertarianism. Until liberals reconnect with this long and storied quest for American liberty, they will lack a key rhetorical weapon in the struggle for America’s political soul.

This could be rephrased as “It is absolutely critical for liberals to abandon the modern incarnation of its worldview. Until liberals disconnect with this new outlook, they will lack a key rhetorical weapon in the struggle for America’s political soul.

In other words until they become moderates, at least in regard to economic theory.