Reconciling Capitalism and Democracy
Foreign Affairs keeps showing up in my inbox – and I keep ignoring it. But today I paid $2.95 for the article Making Modernity Work, and downloaded it. As I expected, it provided a self-serving history of the Modern world, intended to keep the world of business in power indefinitely. These intellectuals are apologists for that power structure – and I am sure they are well-paid to do so.
I will not attempt to refute their arguments, that would only be a waste of my time and yours. I will only copy this excerpt:
Few “classic” liberals insist that the State should play no role in the economy, and few serious conservatives, at least in England and on the Continent, believe that the Welfare State is “the road to serfdom.” In the Western world, therefore, there is today a rough consensus among intellectuals on political issues: the acceptance of a Welfare State; the desirability of decentralized power;a system of mixed economy and of political pluralism.
The author is carefully ignoring a basic fact – that Americans do not accept this consensus at all – they believe just the opposite. They are not interested in reconciling anything – and reject anything intellectual out-of-hand.
On its home page, it reviews the book Rule and Ruin about the American Republicans. Europe is aware of America – and doesn’t like it.
However, if you are interested, here is the link to How We Got Here: the Rise of the Modern Order. There is some good stuff here – but if you are like me, you are skeptical about the present system, and see it was a vast failure instead.
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