To one American family out of four, the idea of capitalism as a benign system of comfort, dignity, and personal advance is only a myth, or worse, a bitter mockery.
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Chapter X, The Modern World, p. 281Robert Heilbroner
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The glitz and propaganda, the ridiculous obsessions imparted by our electronic hallucinations, and the spectacles that pass for political participation mask the deadly ecological assault by the corporate state. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into self-delusion. We convince ourselves that global warming does not exist. Or we concede that it exists but insist that we can adapt. Both responses satisfy our mania for eternal optimism and our reckless pursuit of personal comfort. In America, when reality is distasteful we ignore it. But reality will soon descend like the Furies to shatter our complacency and finally our lives. We, as a species, may be doomed. And this is a bitter, bitter fact for a father to digest.
Chris Hedges
Despite the miracles of capitalism, it doesn't do well in popularity polls. One of the reasons is that capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent, non-realizable utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system, when compared to a Utopia will pale in comparison. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires.
Walter E. Williams
F. A. Hayek, probably the most prominent advocate of capitalism in the present period would not quite agree with Smith's notions of what is natural, but his defense of capitalism is indirect by reference to its linkage with liberty, and he explicitly rejected the idea that a legitimating concept of justice is relevant to the operations of a market system.
Friedrich Hayek
Don't get the idea that I'm one of these goddam radicals. Don't get the idea that I'm knocking the American system.
Al Capone
I have been saying that ever since I first knew him well, that he, to me, has typified all that we call or that we look for in what we call an American patriot. I saw many things he did that were proof, to me, at least, of his selflessness. … I shall continue to say it until there is evidence — that I just don't believe exists in the world — that I am wrong. … I think it is a sorry reward, at the end of at least 50 years of service to this country, to say that he is not a loyal, fine American, and that he served only in order to advance his own personal ambitions. I can't imagine anyone that known in my career of whom this is less so than it is in his case.
George Marshall
Heilbroner, Robert
Heimel, Cynthia
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