[sbuttgereit]

Adam Smith was wrong with the regard to the moral case for capitalism. He rightfully recognized why people acted, but he failed to recognize any substantive moral basis is such self interested actions; instead he resorted to the precise premise that the post I originally responded to pre-supposed. That argument must fail because one cannot act with self-interest AND altruistic interest consistently. The capitalist must always fail on these terms as there is always someone with a perceived greater need, and perceived greater right, to the capital of the capitalist.

If you consider first and foremost your own happiness and life as a moral value worthy of pursuit, you loose the hang-ups that Adam Smith had with capitalism. There's a whole separate discussion that goes down that path about what constitutes self-interest in the large (and no, defrauding innocents is not your best interests); but that's a bit out of scope to what the original poster stated.

[philwelch]

I think the Ayn Rand viewpoint--that self-interest is intrinsically a moral good and that capitalism is justified by this moral good--is not very widely held as a justification for capitalism.

[eropple]

I think modern American political discourse makes this a harder position to take. Which is not to say it's correct, because it's transparently not, but selfishness-as-Godliness is a firm part of the American right wing, self-styled libertarians included.

Greed's been good since the eighties, didn't you get the memo? =(