Alex Tabarrok Doesn't Get It: Why Civil Society is a Victim of Capitalism and Statism

Why don't Americans think that they use government services?

In citing Yglesias, Bartlett and Rampell, Alex Tabarrok attempts a moralization about coercion - without seeing that his attack on the government is no different than an attack on capitalism. See the following:

"What Rampell et al. implicitly imagine is that the natural state is slavery and any departure from that state a government benefit. Thus, if the government taxes your saving for a college education less than your other savings, you should be grateful for how government has benefited you and your children.
And if the government doesn’t jail you today, you should be grateful for how government has granted you the benefit of liberty.
This is the attitude of a serf not an American."

Some of these are forgivable - I enjoy the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction, for instance, but I don't think of it as a social program, or rather, I wouldn't have thought to include that if I were asked the question. But by the time you get to Social Security, Unemployment and Medicare, it is shocking that people don't consider them government programs. At face value, one can only speculate that the preeminent narrative - that Tabarrok reinforces here - is successful in claiming that the market can solve problems where the state has been the only actor - since its usually unprofitable to provide services to those who cannot pay out of pocket for them. Implicitly, Tabarrok is creating a distinction between government and market forces - the latter as civil society - in an attempt to make the ignorance of government-mediation (and I use this term purely for his own benefit) of economic functions a "virtue" of our "lack of deference" to the government. But capitalism is just as prevalent in these structures, perhaps just as misrepresented, and certainly worse for civil society in creating disproportionate power relations.

Why Marx Was Right - and Terry Eagleton was wrong

 Update: It turns out my criticism of Eagleton was too rash - read Joseph Rebello for a vindication of Eagleton's quotes - with the context this time.

Marginal Revolution has a blurb criticizing Eagleton, and his new book, Why Marx Was Right. Cowen quotes a few unfortunate quotes, without condescending to analyze them (that's left to the reader, of course). But the quotes are wrong in their own right, and merely vindicate Marx, if not Eagleton:

"But the so-called socialist system had its achievements, too.  China and the Soviet Union dragged their citizens out of economic backwardness into the modern industrial world, at however horrific a human cost; and the cost was so steep partly because of the hostility of the capitalist West."

...

"Revolution is generally thought to be the opposite of democracy, as the work of sinister underground minorities out to subvert the will of the majority.  In fact, as a process by which men and women assume power over their own existence through popular councils and assemblies, it is a great deal more democratic than anything on offer at the moment.  The Bolsheviks had an impressive record of open controversy within their ranks, and the idea that they should rule the country as the only political party was no part of their original programme."

Perhaps better context may help Eagleton, but its deplorable inaccuracy stands on its own right.