Why Not Three Cheers?
In 1979, Irving Kristol published a volume of essays entitled Two Cheers
for Capitalism.1 Even as fervent a champion of economic freedom as Kristol could
not give capitalism a third hip-hooray because, as he admitted, the system is, by
nature, imperfect. He thus implicitly acknowledged the obvious: despite all its
advantages over a centrally planned economy, an unregulated market is prone
to boom and bust cycles, rewards short-termism, does not internalize environmental
costs nor provide for public goods, and can lead to grossly uneven distributions
of wealth both between nations and, internally, among the populations
of capitalist countries.