11 January 2012
Mitt Romney Confuses Free Enterprise with Governing
Free Enterprise is not the enemy of the people’s welfare. It is indeed a proven avenue for raising their standard of living. Therefore, government must not stand in its way.
However, there are social interests that cannot be satisfied by the marketplace. These include health, personal liberty, religious belief--to paraphrase John Rawls, What is Just is not necessarily Lucrative. American values are not solely fulfilled by the triumph of free enterprise, even though it does contribute to our capability for honoring those values.
The most disturbing feature of Mitt Romney’s character is his blindness to broader definitions of the general welfare than material wealth. One of his most revealing comments during recent campaigning came when he replied to a questioner’s concern about the effects of the Great Recession on the questioner’s standard of living by expressing worry about returns on Romney’s own investments. How many in the audience had investments left to worry about?
Free Enterprise is not the enemy of the people’s welfare. It is indeed a proven avenue for raising their standard of living. Therefore, government must not stand in its way.
However, there are social interests that cannot be satisfied by the marketplace. These include health, personal liberty, religious belief--to paraphrase John Rawls, What is Just is not necessarily Lucrative. American values are not solely fulfilled by the triumph of free enterprise, even though it does contribute to our capability for honoring those values.
The most disturbing feature of Mitt Romney’s character is his blindness to broader definitions of the general welfare than material wealth. One of his most revealing comments during recent campaigning came when he replied to a questioner’s concern about the effects of the Great Recession on the questioner’s standard of living by expressing worry about returns on Romney’s own investments. How many in the audience had investments left to worry about?
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