In many ways, the current state of the United States feels like a recap, or perhaps a Saturday Night Live parody, of some of the most important events in the last 233 years of U.S. history.

The election of the first black president capped our generation’s reenactment of the civil rights movement. Many would say that the Iraq war would be our miniature Vietnam and the current economic recession has phrases like “New Deal” and “depression” once again escaping our collective lips. But the potential next act on our rehashing of history could cause Thomas Jefferson, and all others vehemently opposed to the idea of a nationalized bank, to turn over in their graves.

In late April, upon completion of the forced government assessment, those companies who are deemed by federal regulators to not have enough capital under the abstract assumptions will be given six months to raise capital or will have to give up large ownership stake to the government, which in many cases, would make the U.S. government a major shareholder in the bank.

Initially, the results of these tests were to be kept secret. Providing overly moderate goals that were relatively easy to achieve, as opposed to doing a true worst-case-scenario assessment, was done to artificially bolster the perception of the banks. Theoretically, this would once more encourage investment in all banks. The secrecy of the outcomes sheltered any one bank from being singled out for failing an arbitrary test with easily manipulated and vague results, so everyone could supposedly benefit.

The fear that investors would remain hesitant to part with their money without hard numbers to assess has pressured the government into releasing the results of their ridiculous experiment to the public.

Those banks that were able to agilely morph to fit the mold for the governmental approval will see a large jump in stock price. The others will likely experience a mass financial exodus as investors frantically flee from their stocks, not necessarily because they might fail to perform in the future marketplace, but because they came up short in the government’s whimsical game of chance.

This goes to show that the best place for the federal government in a free market, capitalistic system, is sitting on the sideline, observing from afar. Our elected officials made the mistake of assuming they were smarter than the market and gambled. The market has called their bluff, and now we will a bear the burden of two very regrettable outcomes.

First, the U.S. government just becomes further entrenched in a realm it had no business being in the first place — the marketplace — by obtaining large amounts of preferred stock from these companies that are now “failing” due to this self-fulfilling, false prophecy. The partial nationalizing of these subpar companies just flushes more tax dollars down the toilet instead of being put to effective use.

The second, longer-lasting, more disturbing effect is that this shift in the marketplace — placing our faith and funds in companies due to random artificial projections instead of actual performance-based measures — moves us further away from a natural survival-of-the-fittest economy.

The Darwinian approach to corporation success is the very essence of capitalism. The way it mimics natural evolutionary force is what makes the system so beautiful and effective. As soon as the government stepped in to save a company that nature had selected against, the entire system was thrown askew.

People will argue that it was the greed of a few corporate executives who built their empire on a soft foundation of subprime mortgage loans that led to the collapse, not government intervention. But we will never really know what could have happened had AIG been allowed to fail. Perhaps their sudden absence from the market would have allowed for competitors to benefit — like a large tree toppling in the forest, providing opportunity to the saplings below that did not have a chance before.

But, again, thanks to the governmental disruption of natural force, we will never know.

What we do know is that because of these actions, and the precedent it is setting, we are now on a very slippery slope. From this point forward, we must proceed with increased caution to ensure that our future market remains free and that when the dust finally settles, we do not emerge to discover an economy that more closely resembles that of our former Cold War foe rather than the one we have known and cherished for so long.

Reach columnist Jeff Dickson at opinion@dailyuw.com.