From: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Time to shed the right -vs- left, socialism -vs- capitalism hyperbole and purchase Thomas Piketty's new book " Capital in the Twenty-First Century. " PARIS — Thomas Piketty turned 18 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, so he was spared the tortured, decades-long French intellectual debate about the virtues and vices of communism. Even more telling, he remembers, was a trip he took with a close friend to Romania in early 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet empire. “This sort of vaccinated me for life against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you see these empty shops, you see these people queuing for nothing in the street,” he said, “it became clear to me that we need private property and market institutions, not just for economic efficiency but for personal freedom.” (emphasis mine) But his disenchantment with communism doesn’t mean that Mr. Piketty has turned his back on the intellectual ...
I suspect we boast a bit prematurely...at least by Thomas Paine's standards.
ReplyDeleteGee, ya think Jerry?
ReplyDeleteNow THAT is what I call thinking conservatively, in the best sense of the world.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Absolutely Jersey!
ReplyDeleteI've often questioned why the so called "conservatives" cherry pick Paine conveniently leaving out the parts they dislike. Guess it's human nature, we see it ALL the time on blogs that profess to understand true liberty. Go figure.
Paine can be a goldmine for cherry pickers - just like the Bible and almost everything else. One quote I remember is "Every nation ought to have a debt."
DeleteLike a household and a business it ought remain manageable. It seems reasonable to carry debt during times of economic dislocations, national
Deletecrises, and during times of armed
conflict. During times of a growing economy, business expansion, and full employment (whatever that means), budgets should be balanced and debt reduced.
Wouldn't the Objectivist view be that the poor are responsible for their own happiness? Rand would reject this statement, I think.
ReplyDeleteWe're all responsible but still we put lifeguards on the beaches. People are fallible and isn't it bit harsh to let people die because they are responsible for that drunk driver or that waiter who didn't wash his hands? If this is Objectivism, perhaps it requires a perfect world and perfect people to be any kind of a guide.
ReplyDeleteRand and Objectivism has many positives, irrespective of what some would say. Rand and her Objectivism, like any other independent thinker and their philosophy is not perfect. Where Rand is lacking is she didn't take the concept of long term rational self
Deleteinterest far enough IMO. But that is a subject for a different day.
I might be an Objectivist if I think that it's in my rational self interest that the US adopt more Socialism?
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