Lay & Skilling Guilty: Good for Capitalism

So, Lay and Skilling are guilty and headed to prison. As an unabashed capitalist, let me say "Excellent." This is a good thing for capitalism. Capitalism is undermined by law-breaking and corruption that squanders the public trust. People like Lay and Skilling erode capitalism's ability make the case to society that capitalism can contribute in a productive and positive way to our thorniest challenges. Capitalism has tackled hunger and poverty (real poverty, not the car-driving, TV-watching poverty we have in the US) and it can tackle healthcare, the environment and education if we let it, but the Lays, Skillings, Ebbers, and Kozlowskis impede that. They impede our ability to make our case as capitalists that human ingenuity can solve problems under the proper incentive structure of free markets and limited government. They impede our ability make the case that we can cure diseases, make things that once were reserved for the few available to the many, and give us unimagined new things to enhance our lives.

Capitalists hold out the promise of achievements that government has consistantly failed to deliver. We can't have Lays and Skillings keeping capitalists from extending the long, remarkable march of human progress, so good riddance.