Hard to feel bad; hard not to
Andrew Sullivan posted another story in his series “A View From Your Recession”:
My father was the friendly neighborhood pharmacist for over 30 years. Last year, unable to compete with the big-city pharmacies, the independent store he owned for 21 of those years went out of business. One of the big chains gave him a decent offer to buy up his store, but he accepted a lower offer from a certain mid-size chain because, he said, they were “good Christian folks.”
But after less than a year working for the new owners, they laid him off, without any prior warning. […]
How can you work so hard your whole life and actually move down the ladder of success? (emphasis mine)
Its hard to feel sorry for this individual: this is exactly what is celebrated in capitalism, especially American style capitalism. If you can’t compete, you lose. This was heralded a big success story of American ingenuity, as something that keeps US at the pinnacle of technological and commercial success. I can’t help but feel that Americans believe in capitalism only when it delivers them $1 T-shirt and such-like.
At the same time, its a struggling old man, and one can’t help but feel for him. Feel for him because all this hard work and (hopefully) being honest law-abiding citizen for bulk of his life comes to a naught. And one wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone.
I still believe free market capitalism to be the best way towards progress and better quality of life. A safety net — call it socialism if you like — is essential to help people who fall through these cracks.
[…] governing entities. This bill, which was championed by Andrew Cuomo (and is expected to be signed Hard to feel bad; hard not to - kaisare.org 06/10/2009 Andrew Sullivan posted another story in his series “A View From Your […]
But then he was never a good businessman:
I do feel sorry for him that the folks buying the store took advantage of his faith but then we really can’t blame them for doing it.