Anyway, look, capitalism is just another "ism." The right for freely consenting adults to own and dispose of private property according to their own lights is quite provided for by "thou shalt not steal," and insisted upon in the declaration of independence, and probably in some other places like the Magna Carta that you'd know about but I wouldn't. An "ism" can't even approach it, and only diminishes it by reducing it from what it really is -- a dimension of liberty.
Capitalism -- imho -- is an ideal at best, an abused buzzword at worst. All ideals are imperfect and limited. Like "Darwinism," it's an attempt to secularize a law of nature -- to dethrone God. I think its time for thinking people to acknowledge that.
Atlas Shrugged woke me up when I was 21 -- right about the time it was waking everyone else up. It was good for that.
Rand was, like so many "atheists," obsessed with Christ, whether she knew it or not. Her hero was Christlike. Her Utopia was a 'promised land.' Unfortunately, ideals -- unachievable paradigms necessarily limited in dimension and therefore unreal -- are all atheist have. Marx was an idealist, too. Idealists always lead astray. Malcom X was an idealist. So was Hitler. Idealists are currently destroying America.
The real world is so much more cooperative to human welfare, if only they'd get their idealistic boots off its neck.
Glad to trade ideas with you. I never read long posts -- yours was an exception. Well done. The articulation of the argument about who pays for and who benefits from education was brilliant and needful.
“gawd you’re deep. Ouvre?”
Naw. I just know a few foreign words.
“Anyway, look, capitalism is just another “ism.” “
Fair enough, as will all that follows it.
Capitalism is the economic ordering of social life that corresponds to the political ordering of Liberty. Michael Novak wrote cogently about the third leg of this tripod, a Pluralistic cultural-moral sphere. Over the years, I have come to appreciate his position, and to think of these three legs—Capitalism, Libety, Pluralism—as delimiting American exceptionalism.
I read Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead in my teens and was profoundly influenced by them. I remember feeling swelled up with the sensation of a Francisco D’Ancona or Howard Roarke, even as I joined the sexual revolution, decried my evil, racist country and bought into every communist idea the zeitgeist was pedaling. The decades, life, etc. have taught me the dual folly of my youth.
“Glad to trade ideas with you. I never read long posts — yours was an exception. Well done. The articulation of the argument about who pays for and who benefits from education was brilliant and needful.”
It’s been a pleasure dialoging with you. Thanks for the compliment.