Posted on 02/02/2007 5:37:44 PM PST by shrinkermd
Caveat emptor...
Gravity is a property of the physical universe antecedent to all human existence.
Capitalism is an economic system designed by humans, controlled by humans, utilizing humans. Humans are fundamentally moral beings.
Yes! Good advice. I'll be buying none of the ideas that you are trying to sell here.
Go ahead and report abuse again, Thin Skin.
cahvez and mugabe are selective capitalists for themselves, socialists for others
OK, got it! Just checking... :)
Exactly. Add Hillary, Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Rangel, et al to that list too.
Yes, caveat emptor. That is the credo of any serious capitalist not wanting to be played a fool.
Let me guess, you sell used cars... no wonder...
The fact that the most corrupt among us are often put on pedastals of power and fame negates that idea all by itself.
Morality is rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
The Latin phrase that most closely resembles your latest bit of imparted wisdom is "caveat venditor" but that just a slight quibble and you will probably defend yourself against the criticism anyhow.
Now, are you going to finally answer my two-part question?
Money represents the value in a just exchange of goods and services. It is neither morally good, or bad, because it's simply a medium of exchange. The good and bad depend on the particulars of the transaction.
The Dictionary was written by a Christian...
I guess not.
"There's a sucker born every minute." (P.T. Barnum)
Capitalism, and economic freedom is the highest form of morality, because it allows the individual to choose to do what is good.
The fact that some individuals choose to do what is not good, should not be an indictment on capitalism, but rather on the individual's themselves.
I don't think any other New York lawyer would be different...
"...If history could prove and teach us anything, it would be that private ownership of the means of production is a necessary requisite of civilization and material well-being. All civilizations have up to now been based on private property.
Only nations committed to the principle of private property have risen above penury and produced science, art, and literature. There is no experience to show that any other social system could provide mankind with any of the achievements of civilization. Nevertheless, only few people consider this as a sufficient and incontestable refutation of the socialist program.
On the contrary, there are even people who argue the other way round. It is frequently asserted that the system of private property is done for precisely because it was the system that men applied in the past. However beneficial a social system may have been in the past, they say, it cannot be so in the future too; a new age requires a new mode of social organization. Mankind has reached maturity; it would be pernicious for it to cling to the principles to which it resorted in the earlier stages of its evolution. This is certainly the most radical abandonment of experimentalism. The experimental method may assert: because a produced in the past the result b, it will produce it in the future also. It must never assert: because a produced in the past the result b, it is proved that it cannot produce it any longer.
In spite of the fact that mankind has had no experience with the socialist mode of production, the socialist writers have constructed various schemes of socialist systems based on aprioristic reasoning. But as soon as anybody dares to analyze these projects and to scrutinize them with regard to their feasibility and their ability to further human welfare, the socialists vehemently object. These analyses, they say, are merely idle aprioristic speculations. They cannot disprove the correctness of our statements and the expediency of our plans. They are not experimental. One must try socialism and then the results will speak for themselves.
What these socialists ask for is absurd. Carried to its ultimate logical consequences, their idea implies that men are not free to refute by reasoning any scheme — however nonsensical, self-contradictory, and impracticable — that any reformer is pleased to suggest. According to their view, the only method permissible for the refutation of such a — necessarily abstract and aprioristic — plan is to test it by reorganizing the whole of society according to its designs. As soon as a man sketches the plan for a better social order, all nations are bound to try it and to see what will happen.
Liberals and socialists are the ultimate materialists. For every social problem their answer is more money thrown at it and more government control. They always discount the influence of spiritual and moral courage, perseverance, hard work and ingenuity.
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