Not to mention that real wages as a percentage of GDP have remained fairly stable in the EU but not over here.
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Is that a result of purely government enforcement or is there a corporate culture which freely chooses to do that?

It’s not whether govt is good or bad, it’s what kind of govt and what kind of private activity. Every developed economy is mixed, and the successful mixture varies widely. Being dogmatic on one side or the other is not useful.

Republicans are fond of saying the Constitution isn’t a suicide pact.

Neither should the Capitalistic system be. Idealism is great. Ideology is great. Extremism can be ruinous.

Business which wants a bailout are just doing what businesses do, makin’ money. That doesn’t mean, that in the name of saving everyone that our government should sacrifice the rest of us. Government shouldn’t become our guillotine to save someone else from the noose they made for themselves.

Government can indeed save the system, by letting it work and intervening only in rare instances where it’s necessary to save the system or to save all of us from the excessive downs that sometimes occur.

These days, as the Bear Stearns bailout shows, we also have to beware that government doesn’t always have infinite resources to save the whole system. As the Republicans have been arguing for a smaller government they, more than anyone really, should realize a smaller government can’t bail out the entire world.

The giveaway of Indian lands to settlers, or of federal lands to private railroads in the 19th century? Good for America. Taxing the rich to pay for public water and septic systems, “Socialism!” Using tax dollars to pay Colorado militia to machine gun Ludlow’s striking miners? Essential to the social order. Taxing mine owners to pay for safety inspections, or allowing miners to unionize, “Socialism!”

Healthcare is a universal human right and obvious social good in every developed country except America. Here, it is a function of employment, considered the holy of holies and not fit for the unclean hands of government to interfere with.

Actually, that traditional model of government and business relations has been giving way at the margins for decades. Many businesses would now welcome universal healthcare: it provides a more reliable, lower cost work force at lower direct cost. The principal obstacles are the radical wealthy and their paid pundits, and those industries and their lobbyists whose profits depend on the current, cat’s cradle of a business model that has high school graduates interpreting contracts in order to deny or delay medical care in order to escalate profits. A down the rabbit hole confection desperately in need of rationalization.

Capitalists now have slaves off shore and outta sight.

Abolitionists made it unsightly to keep slaves in plain sight in america