Link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a68c9520-dc5b-11dd-b07e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

This article by John Kay in the Financial Times starts with a discussion on the disappearance of Woolworths from the UK, but then broadens into a much more interesting and valuable discussion of how to sell (or not) capitalism in the current economic downturn. Some key points he makes:

But those who defend the market system are often the system's worst enemies. I recently listened to a group of businessmen deploring the anti-capitalist tone of much of what is taught in schools. They had a point. But they spoiled it by promoting a description of capitalism that was at once repulsive and false...
...They explained that in addition to the considerable salaries senior managers receive, large financial incentives were needed to persuade them to perform the duties that were attached to their jobs. In contrast, people who worked in the public sector mostly did so because they were too lazy or ineffective to get jobs in large corporations. They professed surprise that teachers did not relay these opinions to their charges. I understood why, and was relieved they did not.

Kay's summary is succinct and compelling:

Young people looking towards the world of work should understand that the greatest reward from a job is the satisfaction of doing it well. The people who are most successful in business in the long run are people who are passionate about business - whose aspirations are to bring new products and services to market, to serve customers better, to motivate their staff to greater efforts.

I am familiar with the stereotypical thinking patterns quoted by Kay in this article. They almost exactly match the thinking that I suffered from when interacting with my peers and their dumb-ass condescending parents, as the child of parents living in public housing. The stereotype of public housing occupants when I was growing up in the UK was a wearily familiar one; we were all feckless welfare-claiming layabouts who could easily buy our own house, but couldn't be bothered to, and we would rather spend the money on booze, fast cars etc. The reality of my parents working manual jobs and eking out the money was one that they did not even want to process. After all, why engage in critical thinking and comprehension when you can get out the stereotypical broad brush and write off whole groups of people as somehow less deserving?
One of the less attractive features of many business leaders in the last 18 months has been the extent to which they have been in denial about the massive gaps in opportunity and wealth that exist between them and people nearer the bottom of the ladder in society, and the extent to which those massive gaps are seen by many people as an indictment of capitalism, not a benefit. This has resulted in some classic "own goals" by leaders who have developed an entitlement mindset. The egregious stupidity exhibited by the Big Three automaker CEOs when they took private jets to Washington DC to ask for government money is but one example of this kind of mindset and the consequent dumb-ass behaviour. However, there are plenty of other examples on display.
One thing that I have tried to explain to friends and acquaintances here in the USA is that if captitalism is seen to be over-exploitative by electors, eventually those electors will vote for significant structural and governance changes. A classic example that I always cite is what happened in the UK immediately after the end of World War II, when the electors dumped Winston Churchill (by common consent one of the great wartime leaders) and the Conservative Party, and opted for socialism implemented by the Labour Party. One of the motives behind this voting change was a determination that business owners and land owners had been exploiting workers and the country, and the balance needed to be redressed. (Later, in the 1960's, the theme would be continued when Labour Party leaders derided the Conservative Party as "the party of tweed jackets and grouse moors").
The results of the UK's socialist period were mixed; one upside was the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, but one of the downsides was the introduction of confiscatory tax policies on businesses and wealthy people, which led to an era of tax avoidance and the decision by many creative and artistic people to live outside the UK. Many of the policies had long-term downsides and contributed to the gradual decay of the UK in the 1950's through the 1970's. Most people I explain this story to usually respond with a scoff to the effect that "this won't happen in the USA". My response is that it may well happen, if enough people see evidence of what they regard as gross exploitation, and they get angry enough about it.