Our Supposed Capitalist-Socialist Hybrid Economy

From James K. Galbraith's Plan in this month's Harper's series of essays: How to Save Capitalism:

"The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets."


The idea that America is a mix of capitalism and socialism is now the new liberal parlance. The central flaws of capitalism, its reifying logic of unfettered and self interested competing parties that gracefully ignores a sub-history of blood/slavery/exploitation, are no longer relevant now that capitalism has subsumed socialism with things like welfare, public housing, income tax, and public education. (Never mind the labor wars that ensured every one of these things, and continue to be the basis for 'change' and corporate benevolence).

Of course, 'they,' Bush and his cronies, oligarchs consisting of developers-Bechtel and Haliburton- and oil companies, represent a perversion of our harmoniously mixed hybrid capitalism. While Galbraith's criticism of corporations manipulating government to gain contracts and power rings very true, the theoretically underpinnings of his critique are quite murky.

Should the government untangle itself from big business, and in what way in particular (in campaign reform/corporate lobbying or in dismantling welfare and regulation à la Clinton) , and if it does then is it the case that the underlying principles of the 'free market' will best serve our public interests? The irony of Galbraith's critique is that it ends with a plea for meeting our climate crisis via "direct public action and the cooperation of the private sector," or in other words, government contracts with (renewable) energy corporations (which was the basis of his critique of Bush & Company).

The central questions that haunt Galbraith's critique:
a) Are public interests best met through free markets?
b) Is profit in a capitalist system of exponential growth based on immutable principles of supply and demand or is it rather based on exploitation/ constantly being overcharged for services to fill the pockets of the top 1% who control 33% of the wealth and CEOs who make about 400 times that of the average worker?
c) If we accept a hybrid of government planning/money and the private sector how can this do anything but enabling monopolies and public spending that is well beyond the cost of the actual services?