Mammon’s Mastery

Paul J. Cella III on the Awful Idea of Efficiency

Ever since my college days, when I spent many an hour defending this country of ours against the various sticks and stones of my fledgling leftist friends, the charge of plutocracy was always among the most difficult to dismiss. An aristocracy of wealth is emphatically not the same as a commercial republic. The supreme point of difference, I think, lies in the role of the state.

In the latter, the state, being small, remains (or at least tries to remain) neutral and unobtrusive. It allows businesses to flourish and to fail on their own merits; for that is the essence of freedom in the economic sense. Perhaps this ideal is but a dream; but let it at least be admitted that it was a dream shared by many of our fathers, most notably the framers of our country.

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Paul J. Cella III is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia, and editor of the website Cella's Review ( www.cellasreview.blogspot.com).

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