Don't be stealin' my boxen

Philip Pullman calls it "the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism." The link is either in the Saloon Bar or one of the archives, and it's under the heading "Pullman on libraries." I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the boxen. Feel free to lift any of mine...

Yes, the phrase "capitalist pig" does not draw the crowds that it used to, so the pinkos need a fresher snarl word of identical meaning.

The header is actually "Pulman on libraries" (this is why I am a grammar-Nazi; "grep" is not as forgiving as the MediaWiki search engine), and is located here.

The "greedy ghost" is not the same thing as a "capitalist pig." The former is a metaphor for an ideology, the latter is a label for a person.

To clarify: The snarl word I was referring to is "market fundamentalist."

Ah. Well, if you'd call anyone who believes that there might possibly be something that shouldn't be privatized a "pinko," I suppose you'd also have a quarrel with Social Security, Medicare, public schools, et al., to say nothing of public libraries.

No, I was referring to a significant contingent of the people who sling the term "market fundamentalist" about. Puts me in mind of Mr. Raatz and his MemeShock linguistic engineering, if you ask me.

I see. "Pinko" is so '60s, I much prefer the ironically stated "comrade." Or "commie."

That is, when an ultra-capitalist is calling me (or any other socialist) names.

One needs to be precise with one's terms. "Communist," used without adjective, covers only orthodox or mildly heretical Marxists; another term is necessary to describe practitioners of the many derivatives and widely diverging offshoots of Marxism.

On the other hand, many socialists adhere to non-Marxian forms and are even anti-communist.

And then you have the Marxist school of historiography.

I label myself a utopian socialist. May I call you a market fundamentalist if that is indeed how you self-identify? If not, how would you describe the unfettered-market-solves-everything ideology?

"Market fundamentalist" is a snarl phrase not used for self-description. I think that:

1. People who claim that "the unfettered market solves everything" are a pack of shysters who have risen to prominence due to their unique willingness to (a) tell the voters what they want to hear, and (b) do enough of what needs to be done that the economy stays out of "total shambles" territory.
2. The entire idea that "the market solves everything" rests on the ridiculous assumption that everything can be solved; a notion that has reared its head noticeably in only two places, religious delusions and socialism.
3. Most people branded "market fundamentalists" do not, in fact, believe that the market solves everything, but are instead guilty of believing that the market can solve even one thing.
4. Although governments ignore the laws of economics to their peril, a free market does not preclude a role for the State, which can be more effective in running certain economic sectors, such as health care.

I seem to have had much less experience with the term "market fundamentalist" than you, so I suppose I can't talk about its common usage with as much certainty.

If you think healthcare is better run by the state, you are definitely out of the realm of market fundamentalism. Anarcho-capitalists like Murray Rothbard and David Friedman literally do think markets can solve everything, though. If that's not market fundamentalism, I don't know what is. I'd say there are other types of political fundamentalism as well, e.g. Communism (for obvious reasons), environmental fundamentalism (like the plants' rights people, eco-terrorists, and voluntary human extinction movement), and Constitutional fundamentalism (strict constructionists).

Yeah, damn pinkos! Actually, I'm pretty capitalist, but what we have now is an entire political party arguing for unfettered capitalism (actually more like unfettered for their campaign contributors) in the wake of one of the greatest market failures in history, supported by all sorts of bullshit revisionist history and "research" using Schlafly statistics being cranked out by "think tanks." Now we have CEI and Cato approved versions of history where the robber barons were great heroes, the labor wars never happened (unions, what unions?), FDR was a commie and the New Deal was the biggest policy failure of the 20th century. Yes, keep shoving any failure of capitalism down the memory hole. I'm waiting for the day when one of these think tanks proposes privatizing air. It always reminds me of this Tom Tomorrow cartoon.

Ironically, it was a classical liberal, Frederic Bastiat, who sarcastically proposed privatizing light.