Monday, July 30, 2012

Capitalism's Image Problem

 Mitt Romney’s résumé at Bain should be a slam dunk. He has been a successful capitalist, and capitalism is the best thing that has ever happened to the material condition of the human race. From the dawn of history until the 18th century, every society in the world was impoverished, with only the thinnest film of wealth on top.

Then came capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Everywhere that capitalism subsequently took hold, national wealth began to increase and poverty began to fall. Everywhere that capitalism didn’t take hold, people remained impoverished. Everywhere that capitalism has been rejected since then, poverty has increased.

Capitalism has lifted the world out of poverty because it gives people a chance to get rich by creating value and reaping the rewards. Who better to be president of the greatest of all capitalist nations than a man who got rich by being a brilliant capitalist?

Yet it hasn’t worked out that way for Mr. Romney. “Capitalist” has become an accusation.

Read More  
_______________________________________

2 comments:

  1. It's no surprise that Capitalism has gotten a bad rap, and mostly from the people who understand it the least. We don't practice Capitalism anymore, but rather Mangerialism, of the sort outlined in Burnham's "The Managerial Revolution".

    What has happened to our economic system in the last thirty years is not that Capitalism hasn't worked, but that it's been prevented from doing so by a collection of doofuses, starting with the bunch at the Federal Reserve, and continuing with perhaps the biggest bunch of retards on Planet Earth, the United States Congress.

    When Capitalism comes up short (as it occasionally does) you'll find three underlying factors, every time:

    1. Incredible Greed detached from all moral underpinnings
    2. Stupendous Stupidity
    3. At least one act of Congress

    Our current crisis has all three in abundance. Correct the problems by doing the following:

    1. Increase the say of Stockholders, who at present, get the short end of the stick when it comes to what happens in corporate boardrooms. I'm sure everyone would like to fire the CEO who ran the company into the toilet, but still somehow got a $200 million paycheck.

    2. We don't teach economics or ethics, anymore. Instead, our MBA's (which stands for Much Bigger Asshole; these are The Best and the Brightest we always hear so much about, you know)are under the impression that everything in business boils down to an easy-to-remember-but-often-irrelevant formula, and that ethics are something everyone else is supposed to have, but not you.

    3. Ron Paul is right in this regard: we don't have true free trade, we spend too much on nonsense, we don't know what the Fed does, and when Congress takes it upon itself to interfere in the marketplace, it's actions are more political than truly economic. This is one of the prime reasons why the Soviet Union fell: economic decisions were always made with political considerations first-and-foremost in mind.

    Time to start cleaning house with our votes, both at the ballot box, and with the proxy forms in the boardroom.

    Regards,

    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Murray talks about "the segregation of capitalism from virtue," and links it to a liberation from an "openly judgmental stand". It's no wonder that an "openly judgmental stand is no longer acceptable in America's schools" when militant Atheists insist on a total ban on discussions of the importance of religious faith in forming virtue.

    ReplyDelete