Anybody remember this old cartoon?

[Deja Q]

It's a Sylvester/Elmer cartoon from 1950.

Sylvester comes into some money.

His cat friends want the money.

Meanwhile, Elmer is giving Sylvester a lecture on investing money and tells us all how companies make a product and use profits to make a better product.

It's a lovely cartoon, but I asketh myself, what the hell happened since 1950? These days, personal profit is more important than improving products.

SUVs, refined energy plants, putting food animals in even smaller pens (which makes a bigger bacteria-laden mess) while doping them up with cheap antibiotics rather than building bigger farms and so on that would reduce the need for forced antibiotics, and scores of other products instantly come to mind...

Thanks Reagan. A pity you didn't get senile before 1978... You changed the landscape to that of personal greed. It's not without good reason why the 80s was the "me" decade of greed... x(

[Mikimouse]

1. Oooohhhhh! You, you, you....socialist you...Phooey!

You probably think that Social Darwinism is passe, too! I don't know how you can complain? You probably have an unjustified envy of those poor CEOs who work themselves half dead for those little extras at the end of the year. <sarcasm off>. :evilgrin:

Seriously though, think about it this way. If we let the fat selfish f*cks alone, they'll get good and fat, and will taste that much better on the grill.

[Deja Q]

2. LOL!

Actually, I liked what the cartoon had to say - even if it was simplistic in its approach.

I'm not against capitalism, I'm just not fond of personal greed getting precedence over a society's infrastructure. If you ask me, America's about to fall apart and that truly is a terrible shame.

[booklearninboy]

3. Hey, I remember that one!

It's sort of an idealistic picture of how capitalism is supposed to work. And you're absolutely right: it's a ten-minute (or so) illustration of why contemporary "capitalism" has little if anything to do with the ideal. If I understand your point rightly, I agree with you: "capitalism might be a good idea, only if somebody would try it."

On a bit of a tangent: I don't understand why Objectivists and libertarians aren't more scathingly critical of our current crop of faux (Fox?) capitalists. Libertarians do criticize the me-only gang somewhat, but you'd think they'd spend as much time trashing current CEOs as they do trashing "socialists" (i.e., Democrats). Seems to me the me-only gang are doing a lot more damage to capitalism than a few loud-mouthed socialists could ever do.

b