I don't know what Chesterton thought of capitalism, or wealth, or success, but that piece doesn't condemn any of them, as I understood it.
That piece is about bad writing, and vapid self-help books.
Chesterton appears, in this essay, to be fully in favour of getting ahead in the world (though he does take time to suggest that Mr Vanderbilt might not be a deity, so we may conclude that he thinks that getting ahead in the world is not the only valuable thing).
Notice the bits about "if you want to be succeed at whist, great; either learn to be good at whist, or learn to cheat".
Chesterton was a fan of distributism, a "third way" economic system that is neither capitalism (which favors Big Business) nor socialism (which favors Big Government).
I'm not sure I understand your remark about Capitalism. Are you saying you think the article draws some sort of parallel between the success books of the time and Capitalism? Are you now drawing that parallel in today's world? I can't tell what you're getting at.
I think parallels are blatant. Such money-worship is exactly what most persons today equate with success, and that same religious fervency is precisely what is destroying the world at large. I think real success entails principles that Capitalism will always be oblivious to. The pursuit of money is not at all what life is about.
I don’t take issue with anything you say. Dismayed by the shape of discourse as I see it, I have been loath to take a position on anything. I merely point out that phrases like this one trigger a dismissive reflex in me, and I do so only in the hope that a mechanical proscription (“don’t say that”) can foster worthwhile reflection. After all, I would like to see your viewpoint spread.
Do you think that the world at large is being destroyed? Are there offsetting Hacker News posts which make you forget this world-destruction for a time, in favor of enthusiastic praise? Consider how you would view this rhetoric from someone you disagreed with. Again, I think we agree on the substance. My comment is about the style.
Today I ran some code through jsLint for the first time, and I remembered reading in “Coders at Work” where Douglas Crockford said that it would “hurt your feelings.” Several of the “error” codes indeed seem like unwarranted nitpicking. But I did find some real errors in the process.
Without meaning to single out your comments (either on this thread or on the Internet at large), I wonder whether some Strunk-&-White-style algorithm couldn’t “warn” us about text referencing “most persons today.” Yes, I know when I say I’m “attached” to some outcome, that Thunderbird is going to ask whether I’m forgetting something, and I know that it's the ignorant reflex of a machine. But sometimes, I really just forgot an attachment.
So for the moment, I will perform the inglorious task of linting an otherwise good remark, with the view that next time you will push yourself further. I believe it is Ecclesiastes that says “The love of money is the root of all evil,” so your view about this “religious fervency” has a scriptural basis. If it was destroying the world then, I suppose it would be destroyed by now. So maybe it is like the sun's fusion: a slow-burning fire. But let's keep things in perspective, and say what we mean.
> Capitalism is just private ownership of goods + a market.
That's neither the definition used by the critics of the system who coined the term to refer to the complex system by which 19th Century developed countries directed the rewards of economic productivity to the owners of capital, nor a sufficient description of what is proposed by the modern proponents of "capitalism".
And that Wikipedia article is confused -- accurately portraying the "mixed economy" the dominant economic form of the modern developed world, but inaccurately painting it as a form of capitalism (when it is called a mixed economy because it draws elements from both capitalism and socialism, and is distinct from both.) It also refers to state capitalism as a form of capitalism (which is accurate by the original definition, as state capitalism shares the features that were originally criticized in capitalism -- which isn't surprising since both the original definition and the term "state capitalism" come from socialist critics -- but not by the definition in the article.)
There's a conflation of the precise economic definition of capitalism with the thought processes and gestalt that has grown up around it. You're using the precise definition, the grandparent is using the looser definition.
Private ownership of means of production, or "capital assets" in that article (it's just terminology). Neither private ownership of goods nor the existence of markets are specific to capitalism.
If these writers, for instance, said anything about success in jumping it would be something like this: “The jumper must have a clear aim before him. He must desire definitely to jump higher than the other men who are in for the same competition. He must let no feeble feelings of mercy (sneaked from the sickening Little Englanders and Pro-Boers) prevent him from trying to do his best. He must remember that a competition in jumping is distinctly competitive, and that, as Darwin has gloriously demonstrated, THE WEAKEST GO TO THE WALL.”
