Posted on 02/02/2007 5:37:44 PM PST by shrinkermd
There is a strong case to be made for the intrinsic morality of capitalism. Anyone who wants to go into this arena in some depth would be well repaid to go to Acton Institute and access the Journal of Markets and Morality at the link below.
http://www.acton.org/
Not unlike gravity.
Like I said:
So long as someone is willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to collect... (Sir Francis Dashwood)
"There's a sucker born every minute." (P.T. Barnum)
Morality is rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior. (Sir Francis Dashwood)
Are you saying that capitalism is a scam, perpertrated by plutocrats?
So long as someone is willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to collect... (Sir Francis Dashwood)
"There's a sucker born every minute." (P.T. Barnum)
Morality is rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior. (Sir Francis Dashwood)
So long as someone is willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to collect...
We are a nation of stupid peoples who have no principles.
Sorry to say.
Not entirely.
You are not so, nor are most of FreeRepublic.
I only hope it is not too late.
Let me see, which has the potential for more evil?? A free people making their own decisions about what to buy, what to eat, how to live, where to live, where to build, what to believe,, A free people making their own decisions whether for good or bad, for themselves,,,, or a few people or even one person making all their decisions for them? The fact this is a serious discussion shows how desensitized we have become to the loss of our liberties, and how accustomed we are to more and more socialism in our lives. If some bleeding heart really wants to help the less unfortunate, than go out and start a business, make a lot of and give it all away. Or start a free school for the poor. Or build free homes for the homeless. Or teach the uneducated how to be successful. Give free seminars on positive thinking. If nothing else, you can always go around and knock on doors asking for contributions for the poor and needy. And don't try to use the Bible to show how unfair Capitalism is to the poor. Exodus 23:3 "Nor shall you be partial to the poor man in his dispute." Also in Exodus 30 "The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less." Also in Lev the Bible talks about not being partial to the rich nor to the poor. Jesus never told anyone to take from someone and give to another. He told people to give of themselves. Socialism enslaves. It always has and it always will.
This is so incredibly short-sighted. I always liked Zig Ziglar's comment, similar to the above: "Failure is an event, not a person". In a capitalistic society, even losers can turn around a losing situation. That's what is lost on nearly everyone, even some "conservative" economists.
And I'm SICK TO DEATH (yep, I'm shouting) about how money isn't everything. Of course money isn't everything. What money IS is a way of achieving what you want out of life.
Imagine if you were always well fed, well clothed, and had a roof over your head, but no disposable income. Your basic needs would be taken care of, but who only has basic needs?
Wouldn't you be much better off, by any measure, if you had the disposable income to travel to France, the liberals' favorite country, to see how our "betters" live? Or to be able to travel more often to see your favorite Aunt Martha, the one who raised you when your mother was dying? Or to express your deep appreciation to your wife with jewelry for the wonderful way she cares for you?
What money allows you to do is take care of the top level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - self-actualization. To have the freedom to do what you really want to do, what really satisfies you in live. Anyone who would deny me the fruits of my labors, driven by my intense desire to be self-acutalize, is nothing more than a petty dictator who believes they know more what's good for me than I do.
What this article reminds me about is the fact that the word "Capitalism" was invented by the left to make "Economic Freedom" sound nasty and despicable. Capitalism is a word invented by the enemies of freedom, yet we have all capitulated and use it anyway. Such is the very nature of propagandistic techniques.
Capitalism doesn't create winners and losers; winners and losers create themselves.
NONSENSE.
But even if so capitalism is certainly more moral than big government socialism.
Taking from those who produce at the point of a gun to give to the nonproductive is patently immoral
I'll argue that the fact that it works is evidence of it's morality.
Ultimately it tends to foster progress and general well being, where socialism tends to foster apathy, stagnation and decay. I'd say there's some moral metrics involved in that comparison.
Sorry for the gloomy post.
I just returned from a High School Basketball game where the halftime show featured our beautiful young cheerleaders suggestively gyrating and grinding to degrading rap music while the parents were wild with applause.
Nothing to do with cheering or basketball?
And this is a pretty conservative little town.
Sad.
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill's statement: "Capitalism is the worst form of governance except for all the others."
It is coveting. Thy shall not covet is something liberals do not believe in.
The market notoriously tends to universalize itself. It does not easily coexist with institutions that operate according to principles antithetical to itself: schools and universities, newspapers and magazines, charities, families. Sooner or later the market tends to absorb them all. It puts an almost irresistible pressure on every activity to justify itself in the only terms it recognizes: to become a business proposition, to pay its own way, to show black ink on the bottom line. It turns news into entertainment, scholarship into professional careerism, social work into scientific management of poverty. Inexorably it remodels every institution in its own image. - Christopher Lasch, "The Revolt Of The Elites"
We are now seeing it begin to absorb nations.
It's a little like that giant planet-eating space turd on Star Trek.
Freedom is generally preferable to coercion.
Who gives a flying frack what one's society thinks about them?
The test of morality is moral results. Capitalism has moral results. Capitalism is life and nature itself. It leads to prosperity and life and growth.
Capitalism is unrestrained liscence to engage in non-coercive relations with other individuals. The more pure the better.
Greed isn't just good. It's Grrreat!
No. Morality is rooted in objective reality. Morality is causal and is defined by results.
God gave man three ways to know him. You can blow off the first two if you are a non-believer: scripture from the prophets and from Jesus himself. However, the third way is through nature. And this nature and the consequences of decision of nature dictate what is moral.
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