--Why does the "socialism of fools" survive the end of real socialism?
Because people know nice rich friends who couldn't REALLY want to let millions of children starve each year and support military action and death for mere profits, so there must be some "other" group that really drives oppression in the world. So find a small elite scapegoat group to blame the failings of capitalism upon. Combined with scapegoating minority racial groups for the existence of poverty and scapegoating suspicious foreign groups for foreign policy problems, and you nicely explain away all the problems of American society without need of saying an unkind word about your nice rich friends.
-- Nathan Newman