Defenses of Capitalism
"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" (excerpt) – Ayn Rand (1966) [Laissez-Faire Capitalist]
>>'Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for man’s right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself.'
"How FDR Saved Capitalism" – Amity Shlaes (Hoover Institution, 2009) [Libertarian-Republican]
>>'Roosevelt's New Deal, for all its excesses, was ultimately a rescue operation for capitalism. By absorbing the radical energy of the left and channeling it into reforms that preserved private property and markets, FDR prevented the kind of socialist or fascist takeover that befell other nations in the same era.'
>>'Creating growth requires that we preserve democratic capitalism’s core strengths — freedom, efficient markets, transparency, and correctly constructed incentives — and reform its weaknesses. Capitalism is the best system we have for generating prosperity, but it needs guardrails to avoid cronyism and ensure inclusive growth.'
>>'In industrial capitalism, profits are made by producing products. In finance capitalism, gains come from extracting economic rent and interest. The FIRE sector (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) and its allied rent-seeking sectors are counted as additions to national income, not subtrahends. Interest, rents, and monopoly prices are treated as “earnings” — as if all income is earned as part of productive capitalism, not predatory extraction as overhead property and financial claims.'
'The Communist Manifesto' Chapter 1, Marx & Engels (1848) [Leftist]
"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones."
>>>> “When government is small and relatively weak, the most effective way to make money is to start a successful private-sector business. But the larger the size and scope of government spending, the easier it is to make money by diverting public resources.”