So, if the People are going to come to the aid of capitalism, is that socialism? The Republicans think so. Let’s say they are right. Let’s say it is socialism. Okay. Fine. I say, let’s raise the red flag. Let’s sing the Internationale. Let’s take those shares in those debt-besotted companies that we’re going to get for the bail out and put some People on the boards. (I’m not saying Palin-people. I mean Krugman type people.)

Let’s invest the money in retooling and research and development of improved products. Let’s relieve those businesses of the burdens of health plans by creating the biggest pool of people that there can be — all of us. In the process, we can take all that money we already spend on health care, one way of the other, and use it to subsidize the system. And let’s restructure all that debt that industries have. Let’s cram it down the financiers’ throats. (After all, that’s one industry that can’t move offshore anymore than it already has. Where are they going to move to?)

And that goes for our China debt too. As long as I can remember, Third World countries have been coming to us to restructure their debts — and we’ve accommodated them. We’ll let’s get real. Remember that old saying: You owe the bank a hundred dollars, it’s your problem. You owe the bank a hundred million dollars, it’s their problem? So we’re the world’s problem. Why should we care? I for one think it’s better for us to be the world’s problem financially than militarily. It’s a step forward.

As the stock market continues to plummet it bespeaks a lack of faith by institutional investors in the ability of capitalism to save some of the largest corporations in the world —even (or is it especially) with government assistance. There is no longer any doubt that millions of workers will lose their jobs, if they haven’t already. Millions will lose their homes, if the haven’t already. We also know that the burdens of this economic debacle with fall disproportionately upon the poor, the undocumented, racial minorities (which collectively approach a majority) and women. All of this we know will occur because these things historically are a by-product of a depression.

Some see this time as an opportunity obtain advantage in their remorseless campaigns to reshape the world in ways that will accommodate intolerance. They seek to deepen the divides among us. On the other hand, we can not deny that there is an opportunity here. But it’s a different kind of opportunity. It is an opportunity, quite frankly, to redistribute wealth in ways that will directly benefit those discriminated against and dispossessed and not simply be a trickle-down promise.

Beneath the fig leaf mantra of tax cuts lurks the recognition on the part of the privileged that the only remaining source of wealth willing to invest in America is in the hands of the People. The fear is that if the United States government, using the wealth and power of the People, can lift capitalism out of a wicked recession, the People might just feel entitled to a collective reward. At bottom, they equate equity with socialism. And the beauty of it is that the Republicans, by broadening socialism’s definition in this way are giving socialism a good name, better than anything socialists might have done on their own.

This begs the question of whether or not capitalism is worth saving. As part of that consideration we ought to also ask ourselves whether, if for you the answer is ‘yes’, in what form it is worth saving. We should be pretty clear by now that a lot of basic things have to change. This problem will not be solved by tinkering. So it would be foolish to limit the debate to how best to restore the old economy and replenish our 401Ks and pension plans. To be relevant requires forward looking.

I assume that America still has a vast, relatively modern, very productive industrial infrastructure. (I’m not sure why I assume it. Maybe I’m just unwilling to believe otherwise. If I’m wrong we’re never going to re-float this ship.) However, it is burdened by massive debt that currently has first call on its profits. While some point fingers at workers, the record shows that the workers of this country have been working their butts off for the past thirty years and have been seeing less and less of the rewards.

Meanwhile, businesses and investors became increasingly obsessed with valuing companies based upon their quarterly and annual profits. Little regard was given, except by the most sophisticated, to the actual value of the assets. This maniacal trend toward value motivated executives to adopt strategies that produced immediate paper profits. Infrastructure, research and development and long-term planning were neglected. This questionable business model created an opportunity for the most sophisticated.

Over the same period financiers were busily sucking the equity out of every company that valued long-range planning and sound borrowing practices employing a series of predatory mergers and acquisitions. These mergers and acquisitions inflated the value of entire industries, which caused stock prices to blow up like balloons. It also burdened once sound industries with staggering debt that consumed ever-increasing proportions of the profits. (It should not escape us that these legends of the grandest of these thefts still purport to offer sound advice on how to fix things and are given a public platform on which to pontificate. I think immediately of T. Boone Pickens as one.) The bankers and brokers then leveraged these already inflated values, repackaged them and sold them as securities that created ephemeral wealth and which led to a boom in the real estate market. Everything was valued based upon assumptions of a perpetually upward-spiraling economy.

If matters were not bad enough, this same predatory philosophy turned health care into a profit center and inflicted its burden upon employer contributions. Health care became a leach, draining already declining profits from those industries that form the foundation of our economy. And this leach, as it grew, morphed into a vampire. The profits of medical and pharmaceutical interests rose by sucking the remaining lifeblood out of our bricks and mortar industries. And with it went the health and welfare of its workers.

Now though, all the blood’s been drained. The creditors are desperate and unwilling to lend, even with money they’ve received from the government for that very purpose. (Now they have a problem with bad loans.) Indeed, while Congress fumes that the banks are not lending, the truth of that reluctance may lie in the lenders’ guilty knowledge that they may well be pouring gas on the fire. For it could be argued that our entire economy is an enormous Ponzi scheme, one that makes Bernie Madoff’s look like a piker by comparison. Our economy has been eroded from within, and possibly beyond repair, by predator termite-type creatures in business suits, carrying briefcases and giving themselves seven and eight figure bonuses for their successful getaways.

The patient has only one chance for revival. According to the Republicans we’ve got to just sit tight and suffer but instead we’ve turned to SOCIALISM. Screw the blame game. I say, now that the People have got whatever it is the Republicans want to call it, let’s say thanks and make some intelligent decisions what we do with it.

But we better be careful. We’ve got to admit that socialists have a pretty crummy track record here. Like capitalists, socialists are not immune from blind spots and sometimes the outcomes are even worse when you have the power of the sovereign behind the decisions.

It happens to be true that private ownership actually does operate in ways that are different from public ownership. (Take public transportation — when times are rough, they raise prices. In the private sector, when a business has financial distress, they put things on sale.) But there is no black and white in this. Both methods have merit when applied in the right places.

We all recognize that some things will never make a profit, no matter what you do, but we still need them. So the public runs them. A good example is the streets. There’s really no way that you can make the streets private. We all have to use them. So we pay taxes, which really are nothing more that the price of using streets. Next time someone screams “No New Taxes!” ask who’s going to pay to fix the pothole in your street.

Other things would never get done or get made except with a vibrant, creative and motivated private sector. Governments have always attempted to stifle artists and writers. I say the public has no business running the creative sectors. Just look for example at the Internet. Could that have been created in China? I think not. Or consider the diversity of product applications available for an I-phone at the Apple Store. Almost none of that stuff would be invented if the government (any government) were running the economy. Every product proposal would engender a political debate among people who have no vested interest in creativity.

If a traditionally private sector industry needs a hand for the common good, it makes practical sense to do that. The best possible outcome would be for the People to buy up those distressed industries that have infrastructure suitable for the foundation of a new economic base. We should use the collective power of the government to restructure all their debt. We should remove their burden of health and welfare, taking it on collectively as a matter of public health. Since we’ve all become its owners, we should see that these industries not only retool physically but rebuild the workforce in a fair, equitable and non-discriminatory way that in itself works to unite people and not divide them. But once these industries become profitable, the government should step aside, selling them at a profit to the public and recoup its layout.

This could be done under a re-privatization plan for such industries through sale of stock based upon reported income tax payments. Every tax-paying citizen could receive options or warrants to purchase shares in those industries, in amounts based upon their actual tax payments. In that way, rich people who pay no taxes would forfeit their right to receive options or warrants, but working people who have withholdings would receive them. To prevent the recapture of these industries by the very forces that brought them down in the first place, we should attach a condition that any manipulation of options or warrants would void them.

Each tax payer would thus have a buy-in. And maybe some of the high-end earners who have been avoiding paying taxes might conclude that during this time of economic turmoil it’s to their advantage to pay up. Everybody pays a fair share, gets a fair opportunity to recoup and advance and we get back on track together. The Republicans can call that socialism for all I care.