Cool Age, 6 March 2013
The Finance and Investment Cell in collaboration with the Centre for Civil Society organised a talk in Hindu College on the fascinating topic, "The Morality of Capitalism". The presentation essentially sought to inform students about the core concepts of free market capitalism and to free them from misconceptions about the topic.
Capitalism has come under a lot of fire in the past 5 years (in the post 2008 period) for its purported role in the 2008 Financial crisis and the criticisms surrounding bankers, their high bonuses and banker bailouts by the government. Moreover, capitalism has become a much reviled word, generally associated with greed, the dominance of the rich over the poor and such general parallels that completely ignore the moral principles of capitalism. That this stage it was pointed out to the students attending the seminar that free market capitalism actually differs a great deal from crony capitalism.
Free market capitalism is steeped in the deepest principles of moral equity. It essentially propagates the principle of every individual and corporation being equal before the eyes of law. Two pillars of free market capitalism include Property Rights and Free Competition. Free market capitalism essentially states that the role of the state is to ensure that the Property Rights of no individuals must be infringed upon and no single entity must be allowed to influence the state to put in place restrictions that reduce competition.
The protests by retailer's unions against FDI in retail are cases of crony capitalism whereby a group tries to influence the government to frame policies that favour their group.
"I found it gave me a whole new perspective of thinking". "Mind-blown." "It was good to talk about this topic since everyone has a view on it", were some of the student opinions that emerged.
Centre for Civil Society is coming to a campus near you soon! You MUST attend this talk.