ABSTRACT
Capitalism's greatest achievement is that it has taken primitive, savage and uncultured man, and diverted his selfish energies from war, plunder, and food-gathering into production and trade. A conservative socialism — a "Christian socialism" — makes good sense. Its ideals, even now, temper America's mixed-economy, which fortunately is not pure Adam Smith. Marxist-materialist socialism lacks the moral change that must accompany an economic change away from profit selfishness. Therefore, Marxist-materialist socialism makes no sense as a constructive movement, only as nihilism. Some liberal circles act as if international Catholicism threatened liberal Protestantism today as much as does international Communism. Whether involuntarily or voluntarily, what counts is that American capitalism recognizes unions and collective bargaining, sometimes even with a sliding scale of wages based on standard-of-living changes. Hostile criticism of America, being a source of self-correction and self-improvement, is to the interest of America.
