QUOTE OF THE
DAY (NYTIMES)
========================= "Companies come and go. It's part of the genius of capitalism." -PAUL O'NEILL, treasury secretary, on the collapse of Enron. The banality of O'Neill's comment obscures a deeper
confusion. It is not simply the collapse of Enron that is noteworthy but
the timing, magnitude and agency of that collapse.
Ah, so many geniuses, so little time. Here's a
sampling from Google:
The genius of capitalism, as
Lenin might have pointed out, is that it develops its own rope, for hanging as
much as for other purposes.
The genius of capitalism consists
precisely in its lack of morality.
Few people will deny that the genius of
capitalism lies in its ability to produce goods—commodities for people to
buy and consume.
The production of both specific intelligence and
generalised stupidity are, to my mind, the most outstanding expression of
the genius of capitalism.
The genius of capitalism is its ability
to capture the genius of everything else.
Bernstein recognized from the outset that the evil genius
of capitalism is its ability to take anything resembling
dissent and quash it.
The genius of capitalism is in coping
with failure, writes the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer in
this book.
Once again, the genius of capitalism at
work: Create a problem, then come up with a new product to deal with the
consequences.
It took the genius of capitalism to make
a valuable commodity out of thoughts, opinions, teachings.
It is the genius of capitalism that chaff
like the Loman's are ruthlessly winnowed.
A genius of capitalism has been to transform the ancient vice of
avarice into a modern virtue of acquisitiveness, with the belief that when each
one acts in economic self-interest, the greater good of all will result.
The genius of capitalism is
that thus far it has proven democratic when under threat.
The genius of capitalism is its
simplicity of motive.
A major genius of capitalism
is the emphasis on diffusion of economic -power
This is the true genius of
capitalism, the seduction of offering us yet another new toy as
the answer to the quest for human happiness.
The genius of capitalism, its
magic, its alchemy, transform the lead of repression into the gold
of stimulus.
It is part of the genius of
capitalism that it recognizes this selfish tendency and harnesses it to
generate change in society.
I would cheerfully argue that the genius of
capitalism is that everything is tried and sometimes businesses get lucky
and in effect roll 20 straight passes.
Tom Walker
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- Re: Evil genius? Tom Walker
- Re: Evil genius? Ian Murray
- Re: Evil genius? Tom Walker
- Re: Re: Evil genius? Ian Murray