Why I'm not a Capitalist 1

Because Capitalists place Capital ahead of all else in their moral calculations.

Strassel: Big Business Sells Out Small Business

This is no surprise. Whether you call it "Crony-Capitalism," "Statism," or "Fascism" the convergence of big government and big business places all else at the service of capital accumulation.

Don't presume I'm taking a Marxist line, I'm not. I am entirely in favor of free markets. I merely recognize that when Fortune 500 corporations use their political clout and access to collude with the central government to shape policy favorable to their interests, that is not a free market in operation.

Thomas Friedman is Flat

Thomas Friedman's new book, "That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back" is the wrong answer to the question everyone is asking. Andrew Ferguson saves the rest of us the trouble of reading the book with his review in the WSJ.

I'm happy to say that I have saved myself the trouble of reading Freidman's earlier books. In the realm of public policy, the conventional wisdom is always conventional but seldom wise. History hasn't ended, the world isn't flat, there is nothing wrong with Kansas and the "Arab Spring" has shown itself to be a false spring as a blizzard of Islamist anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism has blown across the Middle East. I occasionally encounter Friedman in an interview or article and I am consistently unimpressed by his and narrow opinions - tediously commonplace for someone who is styled as an opinion leader.