Markets Remain Our Best Hope for a Better Future
"The financial crisis is not the crisis of capitalism," according to French president Nicolas Mr. Sarkozy. "It is the crisis of a system that has distanced itself from the most fundamental values of capitalism, which betrayed the spirit of capitalism." Give credit to Mr. Sarkozy for demonstrating leadership in attempting to salvage what we know is true -- that democratic capitalism is the best hope for mankind -- while jettisoning the abuses and fraudulent practices that have distorted the outcomes of free-market competition.
Who would have guessed that it would take a Frenchman to remind us that hope is the limitless source of power that drives the human spirit to create, to improve, to achieve its dreams; it is the greatest civilizing influence in our culture. Yet it was Mr. Sarkozy, speaking before Congress last November, who offered the most profound assessment of our nation's gift to the world.
"What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind," he said. "America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who -- with their hands, their intelligence and their heart -- built the greatest nation in the world: 'Come, and everything will be given to you.' She said: 'Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.'"
It's a lesson that should never be lost or forgotten.
~Judy Shelton in today's WSJ article "A Capitalist Manifesto: Markets remain our best hope for a better future."
4 Comments:
Wow. Next thing you know, the French will be working longer hours to pay down their debt.
I certainly hope so. I'd hate to see France go bankrupt like Iceland.
Democratic capitalism is an oxymoron.
Democracy is the ideal that all men are equal regardless of means.
Capitalism is the natural hierarchy of men according to means.
Democracy means that I am equal to my neighbor.
Capitalism means that I am always unequal to my neighbor.
It is so very sad that right wing propaganda so often use terms that, when you examine them, have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
Arman...democracy means that you and your neighbor have an equal voice, not total equality in everything.
And capitalism means that a person's influence (or voice) is unequal to his neighbor's.
Capitalism is the way of business. It is not appropriately applied to any kind of government system.
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