Posted on 11/04/2009 5:44:22 AM PST by SupplySider
We all know the Rap on capitalism: That it is fundamentally greedy and immoral. That it enables the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor. That open markets are Darwinian places where the most ruthless unfairly crush smaller competitors and where the cost of vital products and services like health care and energy are almost beyond the reach of those who need them. Capitalism has also been blamed for a range of social ills--from air pollution to obesity.
Not only have educated, successful people bought into capitalism's bad Rap, but the Rap is taught in our schools. It has molded the thinking and analyses of our most influential opinion leaders, writers, thinkers, and policy makers of both political parties. Long before the stock market meltdown, before AIG executives and automotive CEOs were being tarred and feathered by Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike regularly blamed "overpaid" executives and "Wall Street greed" for the problems ailing America's economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
A simple (in the good sense), clear, and uplifting discussion of how government, not free markets, caused our current mess.
Capitalism isn't immoral,
it is amoral
it is not caring/uncaring
it does not love/hate
it is blindly impartial to any individuals fate
It does however do the greatest good for the greatest number
relative to any other market system on Earth
That can be managed by Caesar (Government)
Folks on the Left often talk about the greatest good for the greatest number. But they are utterly blind to the pure fact that Capitalism is the method to achieve that. No other method has ever come close.
I could never understand why we need so many controls on human behavior (who we marry, who we have sex with, what we ingest) becasue, well, you just can’t trust people to do the right thing. But put the same person in a boardroom, and suddenly it should be hands off.
IIRC, it was Walter Williams, in an essay I read some time back, that suggested that capitalism has an inherent morality to it because at its core, it rewards those who provide goods and services to their fellow man.
What smust be controlled is
the consequences of the behavior
Libertarians are, IMHO, correct in this regard
Who you have sex with is immaterial
That you knowingly gave then AIDS is not
Using drugs is immaterial
driving impaired is not
Killing yourself is one thing
Killing someone else another
Abortion is killing another without their consent
pissing in your own yard is immaterial
pissing in someone else's is not
Destroying yourself is between you and God
Destroying others is a matter of Governance
What kind of system can there possibly be in the absence of Capitalism?
Fundamentally, Socialism is another word for slavery. What else can you call “from each according to his means to each according to his needs”? The one with means is a slave to the one with needs.
The Second Coming of Christ
I suspect will bring a better system
And NO contemporary politician wants to insist on it.
That is why the US once prospered as a "Christian" nation.
Dumb stuff, capitalism is neither good are bad, it’s the people that practice it that are good are bad. Hell capitalism gave us slavery, but it wasn’t the concept it was the business people that practiced it.
Immoral people can use capitalism in immmoral ways. As our society moves further and further from our spiritual Judeo-Christian foundation and heritage the worse life becomes for all of us.
“The love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I Tim.6:10
No truth is more evident to any mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.” Noah Webster
It cannot be emphasized to strongly or too often
that this great nation was founded, not by religionists
but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason people of other faiths
have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here. Patrick Henry
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again.
Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world. Daniel Webster
Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams
The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded. James Madison
[W]hen People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders. Samuel Adams
The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families....How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the sacred obligations of morality or religion if, from their earliest infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers? John Adams
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government,
so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. Thomas Jefferson
Amazing how our founding fathers knew so much and sad how little our children learn from them. My kids do so many multicultural and eco-friendly assignments that I am truly sickened by it.
BINGO
Self Control
Moral Behavior
Self Love / Love of Others
Love of God
are WHAT You Are
Not Acts of the Laws of Caesar
Tools are merely tools
The tool “set” of Capitalism can
be manipulated for any purpose, Good and Bad
That is why Good and Bad are so important to teach
Teach Children (and Adults) not so much
what to think as how to think
With Moral behavior , the “tools” of Capitalism will be used in
very different ways than under Immoral behavior
Of course what your neighbor demands and what is actually good for him may be two different things!
With collectivism, one is rewarded to the extent he deploys the barrel of a gun to his neighbor.
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