Ru Zi Ke Jiao

Fareed Zakaria is one of my favorite authors. Last summer, Newsweek magazine published his article – The Capitalist Manifesto: Greed Is Good - from which the follow good news comes – and caution – comes. If understanding Capitalism is important to you – and yes, it IS important to you – then you should take the time to read the entire article.

“Over the past quarter century, the global economy has doubled every 10 years, going from $31 trillion in 1999 to $62 trillion in 2008. Recessions have become tamer than ever before, averaging eight months rather than two years. More than 400 million people across Asia have been lifted out of poverty. Between 2003 and 2007, average income worldwide grew at a faster rate (3.1 percent) than in any previous period in recorded human history. In 2006 and 2007—the peak years of the boom—124 countries around the world grew at 4 percent a year or more, about four times as many as 25 years earlier.”

“Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favors. But very few people acted responsibly, honorably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system—capitalism, socialism, whatever—can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgment and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate. We will never know where the next bubble will form, what the next innovations will look like and where excesses will build up. But we can ask that people steer themselves and their institutions with a greater reliance on a moral compass.”