Just for my sake; a couple of definitions so that I can make sure that we're all talking apples-to-apples:
- Socialism refers to the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community.
- Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of inalienable rights in which people are free to produce and trade and thus precondition an economic system in which all property is privately owned.
There's no doubt that the United States is a primarily capitalistic system with some elements of socialism. Much of what I find interesting in politics today has in its basis a core argument about what the relative degree of capitalism and socialism should and will be.
My inherent problem with socialism (and its previously best-known branch of implementation, communism) is much the same as my inherent problem with libetarianism or anarchy -- all are fine theories, and all seek to provide "moralistic" answers to the creation of a socio-economic system -- but all have been shown to have enormous problems in implementation. The apologists for these systems tend to lay the blame at the feet of those implementing them; my own belief is that after repeated failures you have to start wondering if the system itself is the issue. At their core, they require a change in the fundamental nature of human beings -- while capitalism at its core attempts to create a system which has as its foundation the fundamental nature of human beings.
I understand where "cat" is coming from; it's precisely the same type of argument that Obama used when he basically stated in the ABC debates that he would take the capital gains tax dramatically up for the sake of "fairness" even though it would cause overall tax-related to capital gains to decrease. I think it was the clearest and most concise statement to date of his philosophy -- and the philosophy of much of the "far-left" of this country (note: I really hate this "far-left" stuff -- but I notice how much "far-right" is used -- and I notice how Limbaugh and Coulter are always used as examples of those using superficial and misleading arguments while how less often Krugman and Dowd (for example) are -- so I thought I'd give it my shot.) This is where a socialistic socio-economic system tends to end up -- in grand gestures toward "fairness" that end up hurting the very people that they are intended to help.
The "mythology of individualism at the expense of others" -- what you'd call a mythology, I'd call a basic law of human nature and economic systems. The best socio-economic systems transcend the "economic" and move toward "socio" in the sense that they help individuals understand that they can achieve a win/win rather than a win/loss -- the worst socio-economic systems try to ignore the inherent selfishness of human beings and somehow coerce them into doing "what's right" for others without regard for self.
It's kind of like saying as a coach -- "if those girls would listen to me, I'd have the best team in the state." That might be true -- or not -- but that's not the issue. The issue is what type of system the coach puts in place that will motivate the players to do what the coach wants. Everyone wants everyone else to do things the way that they think they should -- and if this could be arranged, I have no doubt that capitalism would soon be abandoned (as soon as we found that one tyrant who we all agreed would have the final say on just what it is we should all want and do.) However, in the "real world" of "selfish" human beings (where "selfishness", like everything else, is a matter of degree rather than an absolute) the question isn't what system works best if we changed human nature -- it's what system works best given human nature.
Taking this back to oil -- the very best argument I ever heard regarding the tax holiday wasn't that it would save anyone money (I believe that at worse it's the opposite of a windfall-profits tax -- and I don't like those either and agree with "Big Daddy" regarding oil industry profitability over a given period of time -- and at its best its a redistribution attempt) but rather it would remove money from the place where typically the stupidest decisions appear to be made (government) and add more money to either private enterprise or private individuals.
In terms of reading lists, I strongly recommend the person that David Mamet called our "greatest contemporary philosopher" -- Thomas Sowell.
