To: kabar
The point is that capitalism is not per se or inherently ethical or unethical.
I never said it was. What I said was that you can't divorce the system from the participants. When the participants are immoral scoundrels, capitalism breeds only misery because those corrupt individuals will do everything in their power to rig the system in their favor (sound familiar?). Indeed, I will posit that a truly free-market system can not exist in a state when a large percentage of the citizens are corrupt. The trust necessary for the system to function is destroyed.
And this all gets back to Rick Santorum's premise during this election. Unless this nation can somehow get back to its moral foundations, the system won't matter. We'll be cooked regardless.
226 posted on
01/13/2012 11:23:34 PM PST by
Antoninus
(Mitt Romney -- attempting to execute a hostile take-over of the Republican Party.)
To: Antoninus
You’re right, Antonius, and that is why, in a free society. God is needed for the purpose of morality, otherwise it will descend into chaos, and that is exactly where we are headed.
If a man has morality, then he can govern himself. But as that belief system is taken from, then those who wish to control step in, and make no mistake, they are Evil. Rick is also right, but not enough people can see that, they don’t even want to try and see it, and as a result, we are in deep, deep trouble.
231 posted on
01/13/2012 11:32:57 PM PST by
chris37
(Heartless.)
To: Antoninus
What I said was that you can't divorce the system from the participants. When the participants are immoral scoundrels, capitalism breeds only misery because those corrupt individuals will do everything in their power to rig the system in their favor (sound familiar?).Capitalism doesn't breed anything. It is an economic system, not a moral code. Someone can be an immoral scoundrel in any economic system. The economic system didn't make them corrupt. You sound like an OWS Marxist ascribing capitalism in and of itself as sinister.
"Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer."
Karl Marx
Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century.
NOAM CHOMSKY, Language and Freedom
233 posted on
01/13/2012 11:36:24 PM PST by
kabar
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