The Bad Old Days

Larry Ribstein takes a lingering look back at 2009, which saw the "dismantling of capitalism": Story of the Year: Dismantling Capitalism

For those who are into the "story of the year" genre, try this one: how Congress and the Obama administration have used the financial crisis to undertake what I've been referring to in occasional posts as the "dismantling of capitalism."

Some will accuse me of exaggerating the effect of what have actually been moderate steps to save capitalism from possible destruction resulting from the failure of major capitalist institutions. I happen to think that the system would have survived quite well in the long run without a trillion dollar bailout. My main point here is to emphasize that the effects of the last year are likely to be greater than many suspect for the following reasons: (1) Once you mess with part of the competitive system, you unbalance the equilibrium and something else needs to be fixed. (2) Government always stands ready with another "fix." (3) Go back to (1) and repeat.

This becomes a more depressing prospect when one realizes that the people doing the dismantling either didn't know what they were doing or were simply doing it out of spite.