Capitalism is not a system invented by greedy people to get more money.
It is not the primary cause of the “economic crisis” looming large in the minds and T.V. sets of most Americans today.
It is not the reason Americans are materialistic. It is not the reason the rainforests are shrinking or the polar ice caps are melting.
Capitalism is an economic system based on certain anthropological principles worked out in the home and marketplace. Those anthropological principles include: human creativity, human dignity, human sin (or sickness or greed, depending on your theological commitments), man as a political animal, and human value creation.
Capitalism is not a system invented by greedy people to get more money.
It is not the primary cause of the “economic crisis” looming large in the minds and T.V. sets of most Americans today.
It is not the reason Americans are materialistic. It is not the reason the rainforests are shrinking or the polar ice caps are melting.
Capitalism is an economic system based on certain anthropological principles worked out in the home and marketplace. Those anthropological principles include: human creativity, human dignity, human sin (or sickness or greed, depending on your theological commitments), man as a political animal, and human value creation.
While capitalism and free markets sometimes reward greed and immorality, proper and limited regulation of greed and malpractice can ameliorate the vast majority of those disparities and injustices that are unable to be corrected by market dynamics themselves. But, given the current maelstrom of fear surrounding the bankruptcy of major financial institutions at home and abroad, I worry that capitalism and free-market systems will unjustly bear the brunt of the terror and the only possible solutions will be ruled out in a reaction seeking to try something new for newness’ sake.
Politicians talk about government bailouts and newer and more invasive regulations, while pundits and idealogues turn once again towards socialism and the only real and viable economic model, threatening to give America a health-care system as defunct as Canada’s and a society that provides little incentive for individual creativity or risk-taking entrprenneurship.
Despite the fear alternating with deprecation of capitalism coming from the interviews on all the major news media outlets, I remain fascinated by the marked ability of capitalism and free-market economies to effect great and good change in the world.
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