The article is here:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/capitalism-and-women/
One of the comments is especially long and I reply to it at the end.
“Capitalism is largely indifferent to ideas of equality and fairness among unequals like employers and employees”
Capitalism is an amoral political arrangement. It is not a living thing, therefore it is incapable of caring for equality, fairness, or chocolate...kind of like life. But if he means what I think he means, he is referring to the actors in the capitalist system, or the effect that system has on the actors. In this case, there may be some who do not care for fairness or equality, but I would prepose that the overwhelming majority do. If he is trying to say that the system encourages indifference to fairness and equality, then this is another argument all together. A true capitalist system, one without any government whatsoever, then there is no monopoly on force for one to utilize against another. Everyone is, as much as this universe permits us, a tabula rosa of equality when we are born. Only our parents, UP TO A CERTAIN POINT, can tell us what to do, with the exception of enforcing our will on others. Does this mean that everyone is equal? Can I shoot hoops like Michael Jordan? I bet I could train all of my life and never be 1/100th as skilled as he was. He was born with it. Perfect equality and fairness are an abstraction from the real world. They are only useful ideas in so much as any measure of perfection of a desirable trait is: how do we get more equality and fairness? I'm not sure, but I'd love to see how the market could provide it. Maybe through prosthetic legs in the case of the handicapped. I do know a very bad way to increase equality is through government edicts. I have never heard of a law that could make the lame walk. You might say that a law could demand that more of the public's money be spent on R&D for prosthetic leg development, but then how do you know you aren't depriving some other "less-equal" person of the market's ability to help them. The taxes you stole from them means they have less money to help themselves. This is, of course, a restatement of the economic calculation problem of any form of socialism, minor or otherwise. So...the author's point is really a moot one, and he is simplifying the problem to make his side more appealing. Really, he lacks the imagination to understand what he is proposing.
“capitalism has “made it possible for families to afford to educate their children longer,” is little supported by the facts of crushing student loan debts”
"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education"-Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens. As a degree holder, they make great kindling for starting a fire...other than that, they are fairly useless in most cases.
"If men are not angels, then who shall run the state?"
My response?
Could anyone critique my response?