The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

in the world for a couple of hundred years, and as a result we’vegrown from very poor to a prosperous, authentically rich country.Palmer: In her book Bourgeois Dignity, Deirdre McCloskeyargued that it was a change in the way that people thoughtabout business and entrepreneurial innovation that made possibleprosperity for the common person. Do you think that wecan recapture that respect for wealth-creating businesses again?Mackey: I think we can, because I saw what happened whenRonald Reagan got elected. America was in decline in the 1970s—there’s no doubt about it; look at where our inflation was, whereinterest rates were, where GDP was heading, the frequency ofrecessions, we were suffering from “stagflation” that revealed thedeep flaws of Keynesian philosophy, and then we had a leader whocame in and cut taxes and freed up a lot of industries throughderegulation and America experienced a renaissance, a rebirth,and that pretty much carried us for the past twenty-five years ormore. We had basically an upward spiral of growth and progress.Unfortunately, more recently we’ve gone backwards again, at leasta couple of steps backwards. First, under . . . well, I could blameevery one of these presidents and politicians, and Reagan wasn’tperfect by any means either, but most recently Bush really acceleratedthat retreat and now Obama’s taking it to extraordinarylengths far beyond what any other president has ever done before.But, you know, I’m an entrepreneur, and so I’m an optimist.I do think it’s possible to reverse that trend. I don’t think we’reyet in an irreversible decline, but I do think we’re going to haveto make some serious changes fairly soon. We’re going bankrupt,for one thing. Unless we’re willing to take that seriously and dealwith it without raising taxes and choking off the enterprise ofAmerica, unless we’re willing to deal with that, then I see declineas inevitable. But I’m still hopeful right now!Palmer: Do you think that capitalism creates conformity ordoes it create space for diversity? I’m thinking about people wholike kosher food or halal food or religious or cultural or sexualminorities . . .24