Any real desire for freedom must accept capitalism as essential; there is no other approach to economics that is compatible with freedom.
Thomas Sowell rarely uses the term “capitalism”; instead, he says “a market economy.” It’s not unusual for people who say they don’t like “capitalism” to agree that they *do* like being able to buy or sell what they choose, work at the job they choose, have options for where to live, and so on.
Similarly, Dr. Sowell never uses “health care” to describe the relevant industry. He always says “medical treatment,” because that’s really what is being bought and sold.
It’s a weak cultural argument that can’t address the topic of “political correctness, “ as this writer does not. When certain ideas and cultural norms have been driven from the public square and forced to exist isolated and underground (none more so than 20 years ago “homosex caused the AIDS epidemic”), then you’re not taliking about a free market of ideas, no matter how much license is granted to the cultural leftists.
This is an argument between Libertarians and Conservatives. Conservatives pro capitalism have their limits. Once it goes against nationalism e.g protecting national businesses, they turn against capitalism, not realizing being pro-capitalism is pro-society
Guilty, but I don't really think I need to see "Brokeback Mountain", "Bowling for Columbine", "Sicko", "Farenheit 9/11", "An Inconvenient Truth" and so forth to know they're crap.
A agree with the general premise but we have to be careful. When government grows under GWB/Obama and you have huge government contracts, and bank bailouts , and monopolies many caused by government, some not, the concept of freedom breaks down. In those case the high salaries and bonuses are hardly freedom because the government is taxing it, or creating it.
bookmark
Interesting, but heavy, read. (I think the author looses a little grip when he starts discussing “popular” culture). Maybe if he stuck to discussing capitalists on the Right vs. anti-capitalists on the Right.
The author just assumes the general moral decay decried by Kristol can continue indefinitely without undermining the bourgeois values necessary for its continuations.
If this is untrue, which I believe, then unrestricted capitalism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
It is really very simple. The free market economy is the economic version of evolution in biology. Survival of the fittest, the best suited to its environment. The scientific method is a way of applying roughly the same principle to the search for knowledge.
Evolution, the free market and science are not and cannot be moral. They are merely the most efficient ways of arriving at results. What those results will be is not inherent in the system. Any moral component must come from outside these systems.
IMO the free market produces, among many wonderful and useful products, much that is objectively harmful to society, degrading its moral capital. We are presently living off accumulated moral capital, but we’re not reinvesting. We may live to find out what happens when that capital is finally gone.
Immorality is hardly an exclusive characteristic of capitalism. Other economic systems definitely boost their share of it. In fact, the leftist economic ideologies are a triumph of immorality.
There's truth in that but it is called supplying the demand.
Profit is what motivates people to grow food, build houses, make computers and generally take the effort that creates the standard of living that is attainable (not guaranteed)in a free society. What the philosphically tilted economists like Kristol object to is what they view as capitalism’s dark side, but the dark side is human nature and not a flawed political system. Among free people, it is manifest in excess and debauchery; in closed societies, it’s manifest in oppression, torture and murder. Until man figures out how to alter human nature, those will be his choices.
The only Anti-Capitalism bent I have is against any time mega corporations collude with Big-Government to get political favors which harm everyone eles’s political or economic freedom (aka I am against Corporate welfare, crony capitalism, National Banks, and Lobbying for unfair regulations which cut competitors, or make it very difficult for them to function in the marketplace): So I guess you could say I was less anti-capitialism (really close to pure libertarian..), and more anti-corporatism (which, imo, is a form of socialism-fascism-tyranny-feudalism-slavery-Anti-American)!
The intelligent and principled discussion on this thread is an example of how what are described as "conservatives" debate their opinions. Only a few misplaced personal attacks appear, but the discussion stimulates honest inquiry.
America's Founders were on the side of liberty for individuals in all its dimensions, as opposed to delegating coercive power to those they elected to serve them in government. They trust "the people" more than "the government."
On the question discussed on this thread, as well as other Constitutional issues, they made it clear that no written constitution would substitute for what they described as "virtue" among the people. See the following excerpts from an essay in the book, "Our Ageless Constitution": here
America's Founders knew that it takes more than a perfect plan of government to preserve liberty. Something else is needed - some moral principle diffused among the people to unite and strengthen the urge to peaceful observance of law. They recognized that the raw materials of a free government are people who can act morally without compulsion, who do not willfully violate the rights of others, and who love liberty enough to demand that government's power is very limited. They used the word "virtuous" to describe such people. Defined by Webster, "virtue" is "a conformity to a standard of right," but whatever word is used to describe it, such a moral standard is the necessary fountainhead of a free society.
The Declaration of Independence referred to "Nature's God," the "Creator," the "Supreme judge of the World," and "Divine Providence" Our nation's founders came together, voluntarily, to create a limited government to secure for them and posterity their God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. Such liberty, they believed, rested on three great supports:
Their own words are eloquent reminders of their devotion to this belief:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government." - George Washington's Farewell Address
"We may look up to Armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored." - Samuel Adams
"Virtue must underlay all institutional arrangements if they are to be healthy and strong. The principles of democracy are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted!' - John Adams
Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
"What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow." - Judge Learned Hand - P. 190, "The Spirit of Liberty" (1944)
Mises -- or at least the Mises we get from his fans nowadays -- was too much of a dogmatist.
Hayek was a less reductive thinker and Friedman more of an empiricist.
In the United States, "Christian populism" has also been hostile to capitalism to a lesser extent. Most of their animus has been more towards the engines of capitalism, aka bankers/financiers. It is one thing to attack bailouts, quite another to rail against the international banking "conspiracy."
Socialism and populism have a place in the Democratic party, but NOT on the American Right, which is firmly rooted in the Classical Liberalism of the founding fathers.