Socialism For the Rich and Free Enterprise for the Rest!

Edward Sorel

In the current Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchins says:

In a statement on the huge state-sponsored salvage of private bankruptcy that was first proposed last September, a group of Republican lawmakers, employing one of the very rudest words in their party’s thesaurus, described the proposed rescue of the busted finance and discredited credit sectors as “socialistic.” There was a sort of half-truth to what they said. But they would have been very much nearer the mark — and rather more ironic and revealing at their own expense — if they had completed the sentence and described the actual situation as what it is: “socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the rest.”