Capitalism Fingered as Fiend of the Past Decade [Jonah Goldberg]

National Review ^ | Jan 1 2010 | Jonah Goldberg

[The Raven]

>>Democrat scum like Fanny/Freddy and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd didn’t do nearly as much damage as Wall Street

It is hard for me to imagine a different outcome when the Dems pushed the lenders to make these sub-prime loans in the first place.

Obviously Wall Street mis-read the risk. But the government pushed the first eraser.

[dennisw]

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CompanyFocus/WhosToBlameForTheMortgageMess.aspx?page=1

[1010RD]

Yes, nothing like wealth and liberty brought on by American capitalism and republicanism to make libs sick.

[Tolik]

Jonah Goldberg:

... Every good thing capitalism helps produce — from singing careers to cures for diseases to staggering charity —  is credited to some other sphere of our lives. Every problem with capitalism, meanwhile, is laid at her feet. Except the problems with capitalism — greed, theft, etc. — aren’t capitalism’s fault, they’re humanity’s. Socialist countries have greedy thieves, too.

Free markets are in disrepute these days, particularly by the people running Washington. For them, government is the solution and capitalism is the problem. If they have their way over the next decade, they won’t cure what allegedly ails capitalism — people will still steal and lie — but they will impede everything that makes capitalism great. And that will be bad for everyone, even NPR

Nailed It!

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[Tolik]

Yay Capitalism   [by Jonah Goldberg]

Lots of surprisingly kind words in my e-mail box over my column on capitalism. It seems there's a lot of hunger out there for defenses of free markets to counter the widespread resentment of capitalism.

Still, one criticism I think is entirely fair: I didn't acknowledge/stress enough how diluted and compromised American capitalism already is. Too true. But that's no reason to throw another wet blanket on economic growth or compromise our free markets even more. Growth creates jobs. Growth makes it possible to cure diseases, protect the environment, and give opportunities to more kids that their parents never had (like really awesome holodeck games). Growth isn't sufficient for all that, but it is necessary. I agree we've traveled too long in the wrong direction, but before you can turn around, the first order of business is to say "we're going in the wrong direction."

Bonus: I thought this piece on how to make countries rich, in Esquire, of all places, was pretty good.

I'd be remiss if I didn't use this moment to once again plug Kling & Schulz's From Poverty to Prosperity.

01/04 08:53 AM

[FreedomPoster]

>>As for me, fascism is just a species of socialism.

On that note, please see the Hayek quote on my FR profile page. It’s the third one, a two-paragrapher.

He speaks to this quite well and quite succinctly.

[FreedomPoster]

>>As for me, fascism is just a species of socialism.

On that note, please see the Hayek quote on my FR profile page. It’s the third one, a two-paragrapher.

He speaks to this quite well and quite succinctly.

[FreedomPoster]

>>And the government solutions to date have only enlarged the too-big-too-fail and Freddie/Fannie risks in the system.

That is one area where government intervention in the free market makes sense. Monopolies should be prevented. Corporations that are “too-big-too-fail” are a sign this is not being done.

Of course, the reason it is not being done is corporate-government collusion, aka corporate socialism.

[FreedomPoster]

Regarding that, see my post just above on one allowable place the gov’t should intervene in the free market.

[9YearLurker]

You are right as a general principle. In the case of the financial institutions, however, it’s worse: the government is what caused and enabled the too-bigness that made the bailouts supposedly necessary.

[Poe White Trash]

After 4 years of undergrad work and 3+ years as a grad student, I remember seeing Hayek's _Road to Serfdom_ for the first time... in an English-language bookstore in Taipei, Taiwan.

Of course, Marx, Engels and Lenin were paraded before me by my teachers freshman year as an undergrad.