Goose at Comments From Left Field is having a reprise of his "What does it mean to be a progressive?" thread and quotes one of his commenters quoting Marley's Ghost.
"'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'"
Yup, that nails it. Maximising profits will never deal with all of the business of being human and humanitarian - that's what is wrong with pure capitalism. Indeed, the quest for pure free-market and libertarian capitalism tends towards a certain contempt for the "business of the common welfare" - the "I'm alright, Jack" philosophy which has poisoned so much of what should be the common goal of both common and not so common man.
The religious right are more honest about this than their purely free-market Republican colleagues, even if they are misguided about their methods and their goals.
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