" The
literati seek to tear down the market economy which they feel has so
disenfranchised and undervalued them.
Hitler, who fancied himself an artist, labeled the British a "nation of
shopkeepers" in one of his bouts of raging envy. Ralph Reiland, the
Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University,
quotes David Brooks of the "weekly Standard", who christened this
phenomenon "bourgeoisophobia":
"The hatred of the bourgeoisie is the beginning of all virtue' - wrote
Gustav Flaubert. He signed his letters "Bourgeoisophobus" to show how
much he despised 'stupid grocers and their ilk ... Through some
screw-up in the great scheme of the universe, their narrow-minded greed
had brought them vast wealth, unstoppable power and growing social
prestige."
Reiland also quotes from Ludwig van Mises's "The Anti-Capitalist
Mentality":
"Many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe
capitalism. In a society based on caste and status, the individual can
ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his control. In ...
capitalism ... everybody's station in life depends on his doing ...
(what makes a man rich is) not the evaluation of his contribution from
any `absolute' principle of justice but the evaluation on the part of
his fellow men who exclusively apply the yardstick of their personal
wants, desires and ends .
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