Posted on 04/28/2013 10:12:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
In one of the most hopelessly incorrect collections of drivel that I have ever seen, Paul Farrell of MarketWatch writes Capitalism is killing our morals, our future.
Yes, capitalism is working ... for the Forbes 1,000 Global Billionaires whose ranks swelled from 322 in 2000 to 1,426 recently. Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth, while the income of American workers stagnated.
Over the years we’ve explored the reasons capitalism blindly continues on its self-destructive path. Recently we found someone who brilliantly explains why free-market capitalism is destined to destroy the world, absent a historic paradigm shift: That is Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, author of the new best-seller, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,” and his earlier classic, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?”
New free-market capitalism trapped in American brains. Yes, it’s everywhere: “Markets to allocate health, education, public safety, national security, criminal justice, environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and other social goods unheard-of 30 years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted.”
Examples ... for-profit schools, hospitals, prisons ... outsourcing war to private contractors ... police forces by private guards “almost twice the number of public police officers” ... drug “companies aggressive marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a practice ... prohibited in most other countries.”
Something Trapped in Our Brains
Yes something is trapped in our brains, or rather the brains of Farrell, Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, and those who think like them.
The first problem is Farrell and Sandel do not know what free market capitalism is. We certainly do not have it.
The free market would not have fractional reserve lending. The free market would have gold and silver as money.
The primary reason for the major disparity in wealth is bank leverage of fiat money created at will via fractional reserve lending. The most redeeming feature of capitalism is failure, but the Fed has a moral hazard policy of "too big to fail" that promotes massive risk-taking.
There would be no Fed in a free market and there would be bank failures, not bailouts on the backs of taxpayers.
In a free market, money would not be inflated at will, nor would credit be handed out to anyone who could breathe as happened in the housing bubble.
Anyone who equates what is happening now with "free market economics" has something much smellier than mush for brains. So does anyone who thinks the socialist model would serve us better. If it the socialist model was better, and more regulation and rules was the solution for everything, France would be the booming leader of the world economy.In one of the most hopelessly incorrect collections of drivel that I have ever seen, Paul Farrell of MarketWatch writes Capitalism is killing our morals, our future.
Yes, capitalism is working ... for the Forbes 1,000 Global Billionaires whose ranks swelled from 322 in 2000 to 1,426 recently. Billionaires control the vast majority of the world’s wealth, while the income of American workers stagnated.
Over the years we’ve explored the reasons capitalism blindly continues on its self-destructive path. Recently we found someone who brilliantly explains why free-market capitalism is destined to destroy the world, absent a historic paradigm shift: That is Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, author of the new best-seller, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,” and his earlier classic, “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?”
New free-market capitalism trapped in American brains. Yes, it’s everywhere: “Markets to allocate health, education, public safety, national security, criminal justice, environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and other social goods unheard-of 30 years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted.”
Examples ... for-profit schools, hospitals, prisons ... outsourcing war to private contractors ... police forces by private guards “almost twice the number of public police officers” ... drug “companies aggressive marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a practice ... prohibited in most other countries.”
Something Trapped in Our Brains
Yes something is trapped in our brains, or rather the brains of Farrell, Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, and those who think like them.
The first problem is Farrell and Sandel do not know what free market capitalism is. We certainly do not have it.
The free market would not have fractional reserve lending. The free market would have gold and silver as money.
The primary reason for the major disparity in wealth is bank leverage of fiat money created at will via fractional reserve lending. The most redeeming feature of capitalism is failure, but the Fed has a moral hazard policy of "too big to fail" that promotes massive risk-taking.
There would be no Fed in a free market and there would be bank failures, not bailouts on the backs of taxpayers.
In a free market, money would not be inflated at will, nor would credit be handed out to anyone who could breathe as happened in the housing bubble.
Anyone who equates what is happening now with "free market economics" has something much smellier than mush for brains. So does anyone who thinks the socialist model would serve us better. If it the socialist model was better, and more regulation and rules was the solution for everything, France would be the booming leader of the world economy.
Editor's Note: Should someone who is against free markets actually be working for CBS MarketWatch?
The free market would not have fractional reserve lending.
But this is just silly.
Fractional reserve lending has been around since the first bank took the first deposit and made the first loan.
We need American jobs, not Chinese jobs.
Now.
What we have is fascism --
if the businesses treat the government right, there will be rewards for the business.
if the politicians treat the business right, there will be rewards for the politicians.
The people? Phagh! Screw the people.
Capitalism has generated, by a huge margin, more wealth for more people worldwide than any other economic system in history. Liberals hate it because there are winners and losers. If you’re smart, work hard, and work smart chances are you will prosper in a true capitalist society. If you aren’t and don’t chances are you will starve.
What troubles me most is public school graduates come out of school thinking capitalism is evil. Look at the Occupy Wall Street crowd, and most of them were college students. Trouble is they don’t understand, were never taught, that every other economic system is far worse. The United States seems determined to try socialism even though socialist countries were responsible for killing over 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th century and created lives of misery and deprivation for 100s of millions more that weren’t outright killed.
I love the "Free Trade" fanatics preaching an 18th century abstraction that never was and never will be.
That's why Limited Government is the way. If the government is weak and starved for cash, it will lack the ability to influence markets or prop up monopolies. There will always be some interference, but with really small government, you can get close to a "free market".
The author in question doesn’t seem to know what a free-market is. Contracting with the government is NOT a free market.
Real conservatives would stop all spending on regulatory offices (especially local), violations of private property rights, intrusions against families, public schools, etc. Only fake conservatives become afraid of their constituent majorities (while kowtowing to the few favored, socialist, globalist constituents), get hysterical and “prep” their offices with fake, slob versions of military appearances to rob real conservatives.
I turned on BBC News once last week and they were saying that Capitalism caused the sovereign debt crisis. lol
Your statement is simply BS. Either you have never ran a successful business or simply one of those anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street baffoons. I suggest you get out and talk to some successful business owners.
We have a big-government/big-corporate criminal complex.
I’m in the midst of re-reading Atlas Shrugged, when along comes this article.....
That’s exactly how I see it.
It’s “capitalism” so long as any non-politician isn’t starving. That’s how these idiots think.
Ayn Rand was an atheist, yet she was one of the most vocal opponents of the kind of government we have today.
Agreed. Free market capitalism is something that will never be achieved. It’s pretty clear from centuries of history that as soon as one guy figures out how to get a bit ahead, everybody else starts to feel entitled to figure out how to get themselves a bit of what that guy has. Some people cheat or con, some are actually willing to work for it, others go into government and take it at the point of a gun, in the name of “the people”.
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