Capitalism and Freedom - Guest post by John Butler of the John Butler Trio

From time to time, The Shadowlands will present to you the best opinion available from celebrity guest contributors. Today, it's, John Butler of the John Butler Trio. Take it away John Butler of the John Butler Trio:

Capitalism and Freedom

by John Butler of the John Butler Trio

As John Butler, lead singer of the John Butler Trio, a lot of people take me for some kind of hippie. But while it might be true that "life's not about whose better", let me tell you, nothing gives me greater pleasure than to look into the rheumy eyes of the retards who attend my concerts knowing who has the most coin.

It is widely believed that politics and economics are separate and largely unconnected; that individual freedom is a political problem and material welfare an economic problem; and that any kind of political arrangements can be combined with any kind of economic arrangements.

However, there is an intimate connection between economics and politics, that only certain arrangements are possible and that, in particular, a society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom. Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.

The first of these roles of economic freedom needs special emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special attention...

To be continued