Defining capitalism


"Social justice is always related to the unjust redistribution of wealth."

"Fair competition is always related to unfair government intervention in the economy."
OpinionJournal.com reviews the newly published Dictionary of Economics by Ruta Vainiene.

Ruta Vainiene, a young former central banker in Lithuania, has decided to do something about it. Last month, she published her plainly titled "Dictionary of Economics." The response, both in Lithuania and elsewhere in Europe, has been striking. Since its release, the Dictionary has been the No. 2 nonfiction best seller in her native country. And plans are now afoot to translate the book into local-language editions in a number of other countries. Think tanks around Europe are supporting the effort, having seen the necessity of cleaning up economic language and thought that, a decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet empire, remains infected by history.

"The dictionary was my response to the market need to educate journalists and students about economic jargon that seemed very frightening to them," Ms. Vainiene said in a phone interview. "It explains the concepts in simple words. But also"--and this is crucial--"explains them correctly."

The book notes, for example, that "social 'justice' is always related to the unjust redistribution of wealth, and 'fair competition' is almost always related to unfair government intervention in the economy." In other words, Ms. Vainiene is trying to educate but also to eradicate the misleading and contradictory doublespeak that infects much economic language, especially as it is used in Europe.

Though Ms. Vainiene intended the book for her own countrymen, she has discovered a much wider interest in her project. The Dictionary is currently being translated into an English "master edition," which will in turn be translated by think tanks in Europe into other local languages.

Imagine that. A new book on economics filling the demand in the free market, undoing decades of doublespeak. I'd certainly be interested in an English edition.

I really like those definitions though.

"Social justice is always related to the unjust redistribution of wealth."

"Fair competition is always related to unfair government intervention in the economy."

Those I am going to remember and use.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - October 28, 2005 at 04:47 AM  Tag


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