Saving capitalism’s good name

Saving capitalism’s good name

http://www.nuvo.net/archive/2006/03/01/saving_capitalisms_good_name.html

In his book The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington offers a cautionary tale about capitalism. The story, which was turned into a movie by Orson Welles, is set in a Midwestern town that could easily pass for the Indianapolis where Tarkington grew up. The action follows the decline of a particular family and much of it takes place in the kind of grand old house one finds on the Old Northside...

Our president, along with a lot of the other tycoons and captains of industry in this country, like to think of themselves as defenders of the capitalist creed. It isn’t true. They’re not really capitalists. A true capitalist would have stood up in front of Congress and the rest of the country and declared that America was going to achieve energy independence, not in 20 years, but in five. A true capitalist would have said the age of fossil fuels is over...

But this president and his friends aren’t about capitalism. Capitalism is about creating wealth — it does that better than any system yet devised. Bush Inc. is about defending wealth, and that’s not the same thing...

Wealth creation is what sunk the Ambersons in Booth Tarkington’s story. Having amassed their fortune, the Ambersons were inclined to rest on their laurels. They look down on people who are hustling to make wealth of their own. As one of the Ambersons says, “Don’t you think being things is ‘rahthuh bettuh’ than doing things?”

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http://www.nuvo.net/archive/2006/03/01/saving_capitalisms_good_name.html

St. Augustine said an emperor is just a pirate on a larger scale. He wasn't always wrong.