Friday, August 01, 2008
The Spoiled Children of Capitalism
Jonah Goldberg has an excellent article on why those who have benefited most from capitalism are those who hate it most. He correctly points out, as I have before, that it is not poverty which needs to be explained, but wealth. More, he hints at the fact that socialists are the ones who are deeply materialistic, not capitalists. It is socialists who think that everything involves materialism and only materialism. Thus, when resource-rich African countries are poor, Western exploitation is blamed -- even if no one can actually find examples of such exploitation. The real problems: lack of rule of law, lack of property rights protections, etc. But these are ignored. Why? Liberal guilt. Ironically, such liberal guilt results in more poverty and suffering, while if those same liberals would use their money and education to open up businesses, poverty could in fact be eliminated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Great points all!
I suspect you are right about the links between materialism and leftish political views. There should be some empirical work on this somewhere.
Goldberg suggests that capitalism is not a zero sum game, "but it feels like it is". I suspect that living under socialism feels even more like that. But the perception that capitalism is zero sum may help explain why people adopt leftish political views in countries like the U.S. and Australia. There must be some empirical work on this somewhere too.
Early Leftists, esp. Marxists, were openly materialistic. I would, however, love to see some empirical work done on this. I suspect textual analyses of Leftists' writings and speeches would also benefit here.
Actually, I suspect that living under socialism feels more like a negative sum game. If you're bothering to pay any attention and aren't fawning over the words of The Chosen One who is ruling the country, that is. I agree that the misperception of the free market economy as being a zero sum game is the basis for perhaps most people's anti-market mentality. But as I've told people, the main difference between me and Bill Gates is he has engaged in far more positive sum trades than I have.
Post a Comment