Score

The title of this list is a tongue-in-cheek pronouncement, right ? I mean we all know that Capitalism is the way nearly everything gets built that gets built. Highways. Coal mines Uranium mines. Railroads. Louis Vuitton bags. Weapons systems. Hospitals. Prosthetics.....and so on and on. ..... ? .... , .... But Capitalism DOES, occasionally, rough up a few people in the process, ehh ? There is that. Or am I being my usual ivory-tower academic ignorant liberal eastern self, here ?

No, you're being your usual balanced self. :)

I suppose there's capitalism (or rather, a market economy), and then there's greed. Greed destroys -- maybe not immediately, but invariably at some point it will. Greed is capitalism gone wrong. Lehman Bros., Enron, Madoff -- that's greed. "Glengarry Glen Ross" is about greed. "Wall Street" (the movie) is about greed.

Highways and hospitals may not be synonymous with a "capitalist," or market economy ... but looking at what 40 years of communism have "achieved" in that regard in East Germany (and looking at the burden that economic legacy has been placing on the German economy for the past 20 years), personally I don't need any further proof to be convinced that a functioning market economy is a darned sight more able to provide a comparably high standard of living -- INCLUDING a higher standard of social benefits, services, and public infrastructure -- than any (self-proclaimed) non-market economy has ever proven to be able to provide to date ... ;)

Considering that I believe that Atlas Shrugged is the best book ever written, I think I will by-pass this list.

It isn't greed that makes people want to have security and to be able to purchase the things that make them and their family happy. It is a desire to be successful and when we lose that, we lose freedom.

I read Atlas Shrugged in college and then waited 40 years to read it again. And then wondered what was wrong with me because all that time I remembered it as the greatest book I had ever read. Even if one ignored the so called political parts of it, it is a great romance and a great mystery. And it never mentions political parties or the President at the time, the words conservative or liberal - it is about ideology.

Terry (Ter05 TwiMoms/ MundieMoms) wrote: "I read Atlas Shrugged in college and then waited 40 years to read it again. And then wondered what was wrong with me because all that time I remembered it as the greatest book I had ever read. Eve..."

I had to google ideology:
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare worldview), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical tendencies (see Political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society (a "received consciousness" or product of socialization). The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer either change in society, or adherence to a set of ideals where conformity already exists, through a normative thought process. Ideologies are systems of abstract thought applied to public matters and thus make this concept central to politics. Implicitly every political tendency entails an ideology whether or not it is propounded as an explicit system of thought. It is how society sees things.
(For the Marxist definition of ideology, see Ideology as an instrument of social reproduction below.)

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Nice! LOL

I like most of the books on this list and I added King street run because it deals with capitalism destroying higher education but with a sort of Douglas Adams approach. I'm currently reading it for a second time because of double meanings and easter eggs. deffo worth reading if you want something intelligent that pokes fun at capitalism but also manages to be fun with a light hearted storyline carrying it all