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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (4629)	2/4/1998 3:36:00 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20981

Oh boy, looks like we're in deep do-do....

To: Father Terrence who wrote (4629)	2/4/1998 4:03:00 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20981

Don't fall into the trap of trying to defend greed. Greed and Capitalism are not synonymous as George Gilder pointed out well in an address to the Pope: The moral core of capitalism is the essential altruism of enterprise. The anthropological evidence shows that the system begins not with the greed that provokes tribal wars, but with the gifts that prevent them. Capitalism begins not with taking but with giving. The tribal capitalists were not warriors or predators; they were the feast givers, the potlatchers, and the mumis--the so called big men who transcended the constraints of barter by simply making offerings to their neighbors. . . . The circle of giving (the profits of the economy) will grow as long as the gifts are consistently valued more by the receivers than by the givers. In deciding what new goods to assemble or create, the givers must therefore be willing to focus on the needs of others more than on their own. They must be willing to forgo their own immediate gratification in order to produce goods of value to others. Capitalism today still thrives on the same principles of imaginative giving in conditions of freedom. A gift is defined not be the absence of any return, but by the absence of a predetermined return. Unlike socialist investments, investments under capitalism are analogous to gifts, in that the returns are not preordained and depend for success entirely on understanding the needs of others. The circle of giving (the profits of the economy) will grow as long as the gifts are consistently valued more by the receivers than by the givers. In deciding what new goods to assemble or create, the givers must therefore be willing to focus on the needs of others more than on their own. They must be willing to forgo their own immediate gratification in order to produce goods of value to others.