Somebody else's fault.

THE hysterical reactions to President Bush's proposal for private Social Security accounts are a little hard to understand. There's still no plan on the table and it's impossible to know exactly how much new risk he plans to introduce into geriatric life.

Not much, probably, at least not at first. The various ideas bandied about by people who pretend to be familiar with the president's inner thoughts neglect to mention any plans to let investors divert their payroll taxes into specific stocks, real estate or pork bellies.

At most, it seems, Americans will be allowed to sink some of their Social Security money into a handful of indexes of U.S. equities and bonds. That's not much freedom.

But still, it's new. And if you're sitting on Wall Street just now, you have to admit it's kind of titillating. Any change in Social Security will unleash trillions of dollars from (in effect) U.S. government bonds and allow them to slosh around the economy.

As a result of their own investment decisions, some old people will wind up with more to spend, and some with less. Anyone who winds up with more will of course be delighted, but what happens to the people who wind up with less?

What happens to the aged American who finds that he has, for 40 years, traded in and out of the U.S. stock market at precisely the wrong time, and has squandered a big chunk of his Social Security money?

In theory, he will suffer the consequences of his folly. In theory, he will be forced to sell his Florida condo, store his Viagra, and limp back to work. That's the whole point of the Bush plan: to force Americans to take responsibility for their retirement years. To reduce the average American's dependency on the federal government and increase his stake in the U.S. economy--and thus, presumably, in capitalism. But in practice, do you believe that will happen?

I don't. Specifically, I don't believe that Americans will ever accept responsibility for their financial decisions.

Why should they? Since he came of age, the American investor has demonstrated a single gift when things go wrong: finding someone to sue. And given how morally audacious he already has been, it is awesome to consider how bold he might be when he is joined by tens of millions of other really ticked off old people.

If a relative handful of speculators in Internet stocks can work themselves into a frenzy over the effect on their minds of Henry Blodget's enthusiasms, imagine what outrage an army of stiffed old codgers might generate toward their elected officials. There will be hell to pay. And the American government will pay it.

Once the basic principle of Social Security reform is accepted, there is no end to the number of aggrieved investors it might create.

Today we are arguing about whether the future American retiree should be allowed to invest a bit of his government sponsored pension in the U.S stock market; tomorrow we surely will be arguing why he isn't also allowed to invest in real estate, or specific sectors in the stock market.

The financial services industry--doing its best fight now to lay as low as Brer Rabbit--will surely enter the picture, and insist that an investor constrained is an investor cheated.

And the individual investor, sensing the opportunity, will bay for his freedom. For he knows in his bones that the more freedom he is granted, the easier it will be for him to find someone to blame when things go wrong.

Michael Lewis, author of "Liar's Poker" and "MoneyBall, " is a columnist for Bloomberg News.