Quote:
Originally Posted by armourbearer  A good read in response is an article by W S Reid, Calvin as a critic of capitalism (can't recall the journal), which helps to balance the scales somewhat. Capitalism owes more to the evolutionary idea of survival of the fittest (or in economic terms, the prosperity of the unscrupulous) than to Calvin, in my honest opinion. But I would be thinking of a specific form of economic policy which may not be what others mean by the term "capitalism." |
Rev. Winzer, I think you'd be referencing the Social Darwinist-influenced capitalism of the "Captains of Industry" such as Carnegie and Rockefeller. I'd say they'd fit a different category than the sort of limited government mostly unregulated market society many of the more distinctively and outspokenly political board members would prefer.
It is also very notable that these individuals (Carnegie and the like) also didn't have a problem with, and in fact encouraged, Government regulation or even socialistic ownership, since their companies were at the top and their empires would be protected by government, etc... Free-market capitalist exemplaries they were not, especially with the political manipulation employed to gain their empires in the first place.
I'd say our modern economic system is an ugly combination of Adam Smith's economic terminology and free market cliches, Jeremy Bentham/John Stuart Mill utilitarian philosophy, and Social Darwinism.