Brilliantly mad piece by Lawrence Lessig. I wonder, if Lawrence Lessig is revealing his early republican tendencies here?
It reminds one of Andrew Mellon (Treasury secretary 1921-1931): "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate...People will work harder, live more moral lives".
This is the language of neoliberal/Ayn Randian economics that got us into this mess. It didn't work in 1929 and it won't work now. Even Greenspan admits that his Randian ideology has a flaw.
Its a good time to reread The Great Crash of 1929 by J K Galbraith and make sure we don't make the same mistakes again.
Time for Lessig to stop hanging out with the Objectivists with their weird right-wing ideas for Creative Commons.
If you haven't already, I suggest reading Paul Krugman's excellent piece in the New York Review of Books. And this and this important article.