No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings Bryan, 1860 – 1925,
an American lawyer, statesman, and politician, three times the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States.

The decadent international but individualistic capitalism in the hands of which we found ourselves after the war is not a success. It is not intelligent. It is not beautiful. It is not just. It is not virtuous. And it doesn't deliver the goods.
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Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest [sic] of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.
John Maynard Keynes, 1883 – 1946,
a British economist whose ideas, called Keynesian economics, had a major impact on modern economic and political theory, as well as on many governments’ fiscal policies.  

In part one, we looked at the features of modern-day capitalism as practiced here in the United States .  In part two, we read of the role played by natural disasters in boosting a local economy.  In part three, we saw the tie between commercializing holidays and keeping the economy strong.

Is it fair to say that capitalism is not the solution to every problem, every opportunity?  

We have seen examples in E-News about the private sector’s involvement in health care.  When those whose primary motive is to make profit make decisions about treatments for the ill, is there not an undeniable conflict?  

Let us go beyond health care.  Should private companies run the insurance industry, as there would be a natural tendency for them to try to find reasons to deny claims, so as to maximize profit?  

Should the private sector take over the public schools?  How would companies make a profit if they had to educate children with special needs?  Also, would they not want to control the curriculum, so as to ensure high achievement by children?  

There are services which companies would provide for which they would choose the less risky, less demanding consumers to whom to provide services, so as to make the most profit.  Those consumers who would be more risky or more demanding would be excluded, meaning that those consumers would go without or government and / or nonprofit organizations would have to step in.   

The primary consideration for companies, if not their only consideration, is to make profit, whether to satisfy the executive team or the shareholders, this consideration tempered a bit by the possible fallout from adverse publicity.  As for adverse publicity, companies will keep as tight a lid as possible on their decisions affecting consumers or they will hire experts in public relations to put out fires caused by adverse publicity.  

Does it not seem odd that an executive team or shareholders living far from a community of consumers would make decisions on that community, without the community having equivalent input in the decisions?  

It might be that there would be many services, even products, which should not be brought to consumers through capitalism.  Capitalism cannot be the solution to every problem, every opportunity.

January 17, 2008