Web Letters: Report From the Socialist International Conspiracy

Failure is too big a concept to be left to the socialists. Sure, socialism failed ( see also The God that Failed). But is capitalism also (alas) too big to fail?

Surely, Alan Greenspan has failed. He didn't see the housing bubble coming! And certainly the CEOs of Wall Street failed; they fiddled and diddled and drank $300 martinis while lower Manhattan went down the tubes.

And now we're left with the debris: hedge fund managers contemplating suicide, Tiffanyengagement rings going for half-price, call girls going back to waitressing.

Arise, prisoners, and fellow Nation subscribers, there's a new world before you! Throw off your shackles. Out of the ashes of failed capitalism, create a new world of ordinary folks running things. It would be different, no?

Howard Kaplan

Belmont, MA

Conservatives would have screamed bloody murder, if Democrats had recognized Red China. But it was all right for Nixon to recognize them. Now the Bush administration is allowing the government to partially socialize private companies to save the "investor class." Socialism for the rich is acceptable, but forget it for the general population. Chinese-style communism/capitalism may be the next Republican big idea!

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA