============================================================ From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Perhaps they really believe it. :-)
I just finished reading Michael McKeon's _The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740_, which among other things is a careful tracing of the development of modes of apologetics over that period. And the final form those apologetics for class society take by 1740 (in the works of Richardson & Fielding) is, crudely, "It's a really vile system, but any other would be worse" -- or, even, "It's a really vile system, but any other might be worse." That may be the most intellectually respectable even today of all the various conservative arguments.
Carrol
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But do we LBOers make a similar claim when we can have our own leftish version of Wal Mart Apolgia when we point out while Wal Mart is guilty of a lot of things, and while it is nearly impossible to organize a union there, lets say, it is more possible than forming one at a romanticised mom 'n pop store, where no doubt, mom and pop are livid every time they hear a politician suggest raising the minimum wage and pull their hair out at all those damned worker saftey regulations that cut into their modest profits.
Conservative or no?