I wrote this to my clients (i’m a money manager in Chicago) on October 31, 2008:

“One would think that the demise of the Eastern European police states, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the current sclerosis in diminishingly democratic Western Europe, not to mention the numerous other demonstrable failures, would have put paid to the collectivist abstractions that animate the idealist left. Not only that, even as all those experiments with socialism, communism, Communism, democratic socialism, Maoism, modern welfare-ism, and all the rest of the -isms, were found to sap the will of the people and curtail basic freedoms, the United States showed the way, creating more wealth for a broader portion of its citizenry than any nation in history. Well, here we are, appropriately, at All Hallows’ Eve, the day on which the spirits of the dead awake and haunt the world. It has become clear that no matter how many times the collectivist idea is killed, it resurrects itself to once again wreak its enervating vengeance on successful (and, of course, some not so successful) societies.”

“Egregious silliness” it certatinly is; let’s hope in the current incarnation it is indeed short-lived. I am not wildly optimistic.