When it comes to economics there seems to be only two directions to follow, Smith or Keynes. Some are firm believers in the free market of The Invisible Hand - some are apprehensive as to what capitalists can get up to, and therefore lean on the state to regulate more. After all it's all about distribution. I tend to agree that with the market left alone the distribution of goods will most likely be unfair. And yet. It depends on the entrepreneurs and the market people, I guess. Some time ago I came across the argument that Jews marked of the worst kind of capitalists, always just pooling money together. The argument was right up there with the cliché and caricature of the big nose. I was shocked that it still existed. Lately I have seen articles to reflect the same way of thinking. Being secular I have the luxury of embracing people of all kinds of religion - Jews, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Bahai - or whichever. People. Often I don't even know if I stand before a Jew or a Christian. So I frankly don't understand how any creed should be boxed like that.
When I disagree that the distribution of goods is fair by way of the market - because it evidently isn't - and thus the market should be regulated, I still keep an open door. To me there are three ways. It comes down to the actions of people. I don't look so much to how many zillions of dollars and euros people pool together. I look at what these individual entrepreneurs do with them, please see http://paradoxicalnews.blogspot.com/2008/10/good-greed.html. Back to the terrible cliché of the 'bignosed, capitalist Jew': Whenever I have known I stood before a Jew, I have only met a helping and giving hand. Not expecting anything. So to me there will always be three ways to go about distribution of goods. Preferably in a good mix. Search behind the wall and under the tree, through honest need or selfhelp the help will be there when and where it is needed. Look behind the nose and find the helping hand. The giving hand.