Re: Private greed vs. public good

Roy T. Fielding (fielding@kiwi.ICS.uci.edu)
Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:38:16 -0700


>http://www.forbes.com/asap/98/0601/110b.htm capitalism
>....
>
>The moral core of capitalism is the essential altruism of enterprise.
>The anthropological evidence shows that the system begins not with the
>greed that provokes tribal wars but with the gifts that prevent them.

And one of the most common (though empty) philosophical arguments is
to associate an aspect of human nature with something else in order to
give that something else the properties of human nature. Try replacing
all occurrence of "Capitalism" with "Communism" (or "Feudalism" if you
prefer a less polar term), and then "capitalists" with "comrades".
The text actually improves with those substitutions. ;-)

>The most successful gifts are those that are most
>profitable: that is, gifts that are worth much more to the recipient
>than to the donor.

This guy is obviously not Maori.

....Roy