This is an exchange from Facebook, reflecting a non meeting of minds. It's not an area I foray into and has made me allergic to the social exchange media once again. Probably lost a friend and should have not done it.... but please read below and comment. I boned up on its history after reading this, and the term we are discussing didn't start as a pejorative term coined by Karl Marx, but dates back into the 18th century and comes in several form. Note there is the more flattering substitute term used by its defenders: "free enterprise."
But from my economics classes (long ago and far, far away) it meant market forces including small businesses. Am I mistaken or just not current?
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First Facebook writer, quoting John Maynard Keynes: "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.:
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First Facebook writer, quoting John Maynard Keynes: "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.:
- (me) Have re-read it. It still sounds like a definition of the market system, not a description of what a few may think...or it would have opened with "Stupidity in politics is the extraordinary belief etc." To which an equivalent one would be that we can spend and spend and never worry about the (Greek style) results. I'll admit my economics etc. courses are in the long ago, but Im surprised this came out of him. Keynesian economics just recommended that the interaction between the government and the overall economy move in the opposite direction of the business cycle: more spending in a downturn, less spending in an upturn...but the second part rarely happens because it's easier and more popular to promise ever-expanding programs. I'm thinking maybe the use of words has changed, and kind of fringe element now represents the whole thing?
