Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Declaring Victory

Radley Balko:

Stacy Schiff whines in the New York Times about too many toothpaste options. Don Boudreaux takes issue with a few letter-writers who echo her complaints.

I'll say it again: Critics of capitalism once predicted that free markets would wreak mass starvation, depletion of resources, pollution, and death.

They're now reduced to bitching about too many flavors of mustard.

We've won the debate.

Leftist/socialist arguments against capitalism (or democracy or American foreign policy) mostly consist of whines that the system isn't perfect -- people get hurt. Agreed, capitalism isn't perfect -- it's just better than any other economic system that has ever been tried.

As Balko says, we've won -- conclusively -- and the proof can be found in the wifi at Marxist coffeehouses in Berkeley and organic vegan restaurants. Capitalism does the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

3 comments:

John said...

Good post, John.

I have many critiques of common realities of capitalism, but it works better than any other system I can think of. It certainly beats Marxism by a country mile.

Still, I wish more business would be more socially responsible. It is nessisary that a business turn a profit to survive, but that doesn't mean that maximizing profit has to be job 1. A company can stand for core values and still make money.

Sadly, most companies act like making money is the only core value around.

Then again, we consumers and investors have something to do with that, don't we? If we demanded companies we buy from and invest in to do more for, say, the environment or third world workers, then the laws of capitalism would kick in and the companies would comply with our wishes simply to keep their client and investor base happy.

John said...

Then again, we consumers and investors have something to do with that, don't we? If we demanded companies we buy from and invest in to do more for, say, the environment or third world workers, then the laws of capitalism would kick in and the companies would comply with our wishes simply to keep their client and investor base happy.

You're right. There's a lot that consumers can change with coordinated boycotts.

opinionated said...

You are right again. I'm fed up with all those people throwing off on the US, downing capitalism. Sour grapes.