From the May 6, 1909 NYT:

The professed aim of the Socialists, or the one as to which most of them are, so far as we can make out, most nearly agreed, is the abolition of certain kinds of private ownership and of competition. The reason for the adoption of this aim that most of them advance is that private property, in the hands of its actual owners, is made the source of infinite wrong to the people generally; that it stimulates greed and injustice and cruelty and dishonesty; that it makes men heedless of the rights of others, and of the law which is intended to protect those rights; and that it gives rise to a system of organized plunder, under the form of law sometimes, often in violation of the law, by which the rich grow richer and the poor become poorer. They - the Socialists - insist that under the demoralizing and perverting influence of absolute ownership, the wealthy constantly evade their obligations to their fellows, and especially that they resort to every means acute and highly paid brains can devise to shift their share of the burdens of the cost of Government to the shoulders of the helpless poor. Competition the Socialists regard as a system that aids in the attainment of these ends, arming the rich, disarming the poor, reinforcing the strong, tending to make the weak helpless.

It seems that the current administration takes a similar view to competition. Whether in the area of consumer credit, student loans, home mortgages, health care, foreign profits, K-12 education, radio and print media, tax breaks for the "rich," "corporate greed," financial industry "stress tests," or any number of other issues, the continuing mantra that the private sector is fundamentally flawed and that it can only be efficiently replaced by the benevolent bureaucracy of the Federal and State governments seems to fit nicely with the characterization offered by the NYT editorial.

Free-market philosophy seems to be against the ropes at the moment; perhaps it will be for the next few years. However, when the ponzi scheme is revealed, whether through bureaucratic rationing or through massive overt and covert taxation, will the political will exist to roll back the regulations and policies that the current generation of politicians are using to purchase their continued employment?