A while back, Seth Ackerman — a writer for the radical left magazine Jacobin — published a long, detailed, and bracing article calling for the socialization of the financial industry. Then, over the weekend, he got a surprising (albeit inadvertent) endorsement from Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. In his annual letter to shareholders, the octogenarian investor extraordinaire gave a big conceptual boost to Ackerman's proposal. To explain: Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate, an umbrella corporation for a whole bunch of different companies and stock holdings.