Kathianne
08-15-2015, 04:46 AM
Interesting for those who think the markets are the answer for raising the boats:
http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/08/12/whole-foods-john-mackey-capitalism
A bit:
...
reason: What I’m especially interested in talking with you about is the attacks that you see capitalism under, systematically. I know that, from reading your book, and from talking with you, you believe that capitalism is not only the greatest wealth creator, it helps poor people get rich, it helps everybody along the way. But you see it as constantly being misrepresented, even by its champions. Why is capitalism under attack?
Mackey: Intellectuals have always disdained commerce. That is something that tradesmen did; people that were in a lower class. And so you had minorities, oftentimes did it, like you had the Jews in the West. And when they became wealthy and successful and rose, then they were envied, then they were persecuted and their wealth confiscated, and many times they were run out of country after country. Same thing happened with the Chinese in the East. They were great businesspeople as well. So the intellectuals have always sided kind of with the aristocrats to maintain a society where the businesspeople were kind of kept down. You might say that capitalism was the first time that businesspeople kinda caught a break, because of Adam Smith and the philosophy that came along with that, and the industrial revolution began this huge upwards surge of prosperity.
...
http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/08/12/whole-foods-john-mackey-capitalism
A bit:
...
reason: What I’m especially interested in talking with you about is the attacks that you see capitalism under, systematically. I know that, from reading your book, and from talking with you, you believe that capitalism is not only the greatest wealth creator, it helps poor people get rich, it helps everybody along the way. But you see it as constantly being misrepresented, even by its champions. Why is capitalism under attack?
Mackey: Intellectuals have always disdained commerce. That is something that tradesmen did; people that were in a lower class. And so you had minorities, oftentimes did it, like you had the Jews in the West. And when they became wealthy and successful and rose, then they were envied, then they were persecuted and their wealth confiscated, and many times they were run out of country after country. Same thing happened with the Chinese in the East. They were great businesspeople as well. So the intellectuals have always sided kind of with the aristocrats to maintain a society where the businesspeople were kind of kept down. You might say that capitalism was the first time that businesspeople kinda caught a break, because of Adam Smith and the philosophy that came along with that, and the industrial revolution began this huge upwards surge of prosperity.
...