“Is there something unethical about capitalism such that it needs to be qualified by the word ethical?”
Remember “compassionate” conservative. Same concept. If you are a conservative it is assumed you have no compassion. But it really meant “liberal” conservative.
I am waiting for people around here to spend more of their time talking about the unethics and lack of compassion involved with socialism and communism.
It should be easy since were are currently engaged in it.
Absolutely WRONG.
"Compassionate conservative" implies that those other conservatives lack compassion; in truth "compassionate conservative" is redundant.
"Ethical capitalism" correctly implies that there is such a thing as unethical capitalism -- Scrooge, for example. Ticket scalpers and folks who buy-up common dot.com website domains to extort money from folks who have genuine commercial use for them are unethical capitalists. The banker in "It's a Wonderful Life" was an unethical capitalist.
In fact, those very types of unethical capitalists were so associated with Republicans and conservatives (what party do you suppose Gordon Gecko belonged to, in Hollywood's eyes?) that Bush felt compelled to coin the ridiculous, insulting, defensive, and condescending phrase "compassionate conservative."
Sadly, a lot of people on here have idealized capitalism to the point that, like any ideological zealots, they go into denial at any criticism of their creed.
"Greed" is just another word for avarice and covetousness. The bible makes it quite plain that it is a moral failing, the same as envy and sloth. Those who glorify "greed" as necessary and good in any worthy capitalist, are denying the Bible's moral code and therefore are going against America's Founding Fathers.
When Ronald Reagan was asked in 1979 about the threat of Republican John Connally, who was also running for president and had growing support from corporate CEOs, Reagan said:
"Let him have the Forune 500. I want our campaign to stand for Main Street, not Wall Street. I want us to stand for the worker, the shopkeeper, the entrepreneur, and the small businessman."
I say, GODSPEED, NEWT!