This quote, I believe, accurately traces the source of our present economic injustices not to the talking points of the Republicans or Democrats, but to the seed of greediness that each human heart is sown with. Which raises the uncomfortable question: What am I cultivating?
"The market is a universal human institution; trade and barter is as old as mankind. Wherever the human community exists there is a division of labor and a swapping of goods. So long as mankind survives on this planet there will be markets, and this will be true even under authoritarian regimes. The market, yesterday, today, and forever; but not the market economy. The market economy is a contingent thing; it has come into being in certain areas of the globe at certain periods and chunks of it now disappear daily before our eyes. There’s no miracle of parthenogenesis by which the market can give birth to the market economy all by itself; the market does not institutionalize itself as the market economy without help from moral values and the law.
We live on a planet where almost everything is scarce relative to human demand, and therefore we must economize. To 'economize' means to conserve scarce resources, which we do by attempting to diminish inputs while maximizing outputs. In other words, the more-for-less mentality is built into economic action, and that’s the danger. Unless this frame of mind is counterbalanced by noneconomic forces, the more-for-less attitude degenerates into the something-for-nothing mentality—as has happened to us. When a nation is permeated by the something-for-nothing spirit it will invariably set up a corresponding power structure designed to transfer wealth legally from producers to pressure groups."
Edmund A. Opitz
