CIVIC VIRTUE :

Capitalism Depends on Character (JEAN STROUSE, July 7, 2002, NY Times)

Asked by the lawyer for a congressional investigating committee in 1912 whether bankers issued commercial credit only to people who already had money or property, J. P. Morgan said, "No sir; the first thing is character." The skeptical lawyer repeated his question and Morgan, in Victorian terminology, elaborated on his answer - "because a man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom."

This too is what we mean by "under God". Capitalism seems to be dependent on a shared Judeo-Christian morality in order to function effectively, otherwise business transactions come to depend on such oppressive government regulation and law enforcement mechanisms that the resulting system can hardly be called a free market. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 7, 2002 10:24 AM