Why do so many hate capitalism? More narrowly, why do so many intellectuals hate capitalism? In a paper from 1998 published by the Cato Institute, Robert Nozick provides some excellent insight into the questions.
Nozick provides two major explanations. First, intellectuals do well in school and expect to win praise as they enter society, but find that capitalism does not reward them as well as they think they should be rewarded. They see people with far less intelligence than themselves making great income while they receive a modest professor's salary.
They also assume that intelligent, trained planners can better distribute the society's goods and services than allowing the chaos of the market determine that distribution. Surely, people like them could allocate scarce resources in ways that would raise the living standards of extremely poor by preventing undeserving people from getting too much money.
Why should some dumb jock get paid millions each year when a brilliant Marxist history professor gets paid a pittance? Social planners would take the excess income permitted by capitalism and distribute it properly to the history professors of the world.
Showing posts with label intellectuals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intellectuals. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
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