For example, viewed from the comfort of my armchair here in the UK, American politics seems a very frightening beast. You have a right-wing party (the Democrats), an extreme right-wing party (Republicans) and another large political organisation (the Tea Party), for people for whom even the Republicans don't seem right-wing enough. Terrifying.-johnk
That's an interesting perspective. From my point of view, there's an extreme left-wing party (the Democrat party which has been overrun by the extreme-left "Progressives"), a moderate-to-left-leaning party (Republicans), and a bunch of people who have noticed that the Republicans, who are traditionally "supposed" to be right-wing, have moved so far left (so-called Tea Party-folk).
This is using the modern, narrow definition of right-wing to mean the extent to which you accept state intervention in everyday life (through taxation, or regulation).-johnk
Huh? Did I miss something? By your own definition, "Conservatives" (at least as I understand them in the U.S.) are not right-wing at all, as they generally want smaller government, less taxes, etc.
As for the original topic, capitalism is not evil. It is merely a tool that allows people the freedom to do good or evil with it. As is often the case in life, we very often focus mostly only on the bad parts and fail to recognize the good parts. There are lots of wealthy people who do a lot of good with their money. There are plenty of large, successful, billion+ annually corporations that do a lot of good with their money. But all we generally hear or think about is the ones that rip us off or in some way harm others, and in doing so, we often call a corporation or a person evil or greedy when that is simply not the fact.
For an example, I was watching an episode of CSI the other day, and there was a bus that malfunctioned and crashed, killing many of its passengers. So during the investigation they found out that the bus company was doing everything according to the law and safety standards and was very proud of the fact, but one thing of note was that they had recently chosen a different provider of a certain kind of bolt that held the suspension in place or something (I'm not too knowledgeable about the mechanics of automobiles). They switched because this bolt provider offered them a better price. Well, the bolts they were selling weren't as high quality as they said they were, and they broke. Yet the TV show seemed to call the bus company greedy for "trying to save a buck" when in fact the bus company was doing everything it could to do the right thing. It was the bolt company that was the dirty, lying, greedy, evil company, because they were selling inferior bolts with the label of the higher quality bolts.
Obviously that's just a fictional example, but the point is that most people watching that show probably got the message that "corporations are greedy and evil!" and came away thinking the bus company was at fault even though the bus company was honest and had integrity.
I'm tired of capitalism getting a bad reputation because some people abuse it. It's like saying the internet is evil because some people abuse it. IMO, capitalism is a freedom, and like all freedoms, people are allowed to choose how to use or abuse it.
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Sounds like something Apple would try to pull off.
