Service
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Adam Smith
Extreme valuation of ’service’ and a denigration of the private sector is something that bothers me about both McCain and Obama.
The is, of course, nothing wrong with charitable acts and serving one’s fellow man. It is extremely laudatory and certainly we should encourage it. However, it is capitalism and the free market, not public charity that it the engine for generating growth, raising living standards and yes, increasing equality. Both McCain and Obama lack experience in the private sector, which isn’t necessarily disqualifing, but when it contributes to the distain of the private sector that I have seen from both camps this campaign season it is troubling.
I wish that both McCain and Obama would take a little time to read Adam Smith and Milton Friedman.
The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.
Milton Friedman
… especially given recent events.
Was Lehman’s collapse due to greed or capitalism?
If it was greed, what was “capitalism” doing to counter it?
If it was capitalism, why is it collapsing?