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Tag Archives: H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken on Capitalism

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Political Philosophy

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Capitalism, democracy, economics, economy, Finances, H. L. Mencken, Macroeconomics, Markets, Minority Report, Regulation

H. L. Mencken

“What we confront is not the failure of capitalism, but simply the failure of democracy.

Capitalism has really been responsible for all the progress of the modern age. Better than any other system ever devised, it provides leisure for large numbers of superior men, and so fosters the arts and sciences. No other system ever heard of is so beneficial to invention. Its fundamental desire for gain may be far from glorious per se, but it at least furthers improvement in all the departments of life. We owe to it every innovation that makes life secure and comfortable.

Unfortunately, like any other human institution (for example, Holy Church), capitalism tends to run amuck when it is not restrained, and democracy provides inadequate means of keeping it in order. There is never any surety that democracy will throw up leaders competent to discern the true dangers of capitalism and able to remedy them in a prudent and rational manner. Thus we have vacillated between letting it run wild and trying to ruin it. Both courses are hazardous and ineffective, and it is hard to say which is more so.”

__________

Entry #310 in H. L. Mencken’s notebooks (collected and printed as Minority Report).

Read on:

  • Calvin Coolidge clearly summarizes when taxes are appropriate and when they’re exploitive
  • Thomas Piketty poses the question Did inequality cause the financial crisis?
  • Mencken’s unforgettable defense of liberty as the primary political ideal

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Why Liberty?

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by jrbenjamin in Freedom, Political Philosophy

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Chicago Tribune, Communism, Freedom, Government, H. L. Mencken, ISIL, ISIS, Jihadism, Law, libertarian, libertarianism, liberty, October Revolution, political philosophy, politics, Prejudices, Salafism, Spanish Civil War, Totalitarianism, Why Liberty

H. L. Mencken“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value.

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave…

In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen… I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law.”

__________

From H.L. Mencken, writing in his article “Why Liberty?”, published in the Chicago Tribune on January 30th, 1927.

I had to reread this essential essay after scanning the sixth chapter of Mencken’s Prejudices a few nights ago and running across his consummately cool statement that, “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Of course the thought is only metaphorical — and its overt violence only meant to instill verve, not aggression, in the reader — but under the shadow of the monsters now slitting throats under black flags across Iraq and Syria, the paragraph didn’t sit well. But that’s not Mencken’s fault, and there could be no more durable, stalwart rebuke of Takfirism, Salafism, and all other totalitarianisms than his article “Why Liberty,” published only a decade after the October Revolution and a decade before the Spanish Civil War.

Read on:

  • Douglas Murray debates the question, If we don’t stand for Western values, who will?
  • Krauthammer explains why he is optimistic about the future of America
  • Gore Vidal dissects what ‘pursuit of happiness’ means today

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