Evil genius?

["Tom Walker" <timework@xxxxxxxxx>]

QUOTE OF THE DAY (NYTIMES)
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"Companies come and go. It's part of the genius of
capitalism."
-PAUL O'NEILL, treasury secretary, on the collapse of Enron.

 

The banality of O'Neill's comment obscures a deeper confusion. It is not simply the collapse of Enron that is noteworthy but the timing, magnitude and agency of that collapse.

 

Ah, so many geniuses, so little time. Here's a sampling from Google:

 

The genius of capitalism, as Lenin might have pointed out, is that it develops its own rope, for hanging as much as for other purposes.

 

The genius of capitalism consists precisely in its lack of morality.

 

Few people will deny that the genius of capitalism lies in its ability to produce goods—commodities for people to buy and consume.

 

The production of both specific intelligence and generalised stupidity are, to my mind, the most outstanding _expression_ of the genius of capitalism.

 

The genius of capitalism is its ability to capture the genius of everything else.

 

Bernstein recognized from the outset that the evil genius of capitalism is its ability to take anything resembling dissent and quash it.

 

The genius of capitalism is in coping with failure, writes the founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer in this book.

 

Once again, the genius of capitalism at work: Create a problem, then come up with a new product to deal with the consequences.

 

It took the genius of capitalism to make a valuable commodity out of thoughts, opinions, teachings.

 

It is the genius of capitalism that chaff like the Loman's are ruthlessly winnowed.

 

A genius of capitalism has been to transform the ancient vice of avarice into a modern virtue of acquisitiveness, with the belief that when each one acts in economic self-interest, the greater good of all will result. 

 

The genius of capitalism is that thus far it has proven democratic when under threat.

 

The genius of capitalism is its simplicity of motive.

 

A major genius of capitalism is the emphasis on diffusion of economic -power

 

This is the true genius of capitalism, the seduction of offering us yet another new toy as the answer to the quest for human happiness.

 

The genius of capitalism, its magic, its alchemy, transform the lead of repression into the gold of stimulus.

 

It is part of the genius of capitalism that it recognizes this selfish tendency and harnesses it to generate change in society.

 

I would cheerfully argue that the genius of capitalism is that everything is tried and sometimes businesses get lucky and in effect roll 20 straight passes.

 

Tom Walker