{"id":977,"date":"2022-07-22T11:28:39","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T15:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2021\/?page_id=977"},"modified":"2022-07-22T11:28:39","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T15:28:39","slug":"david-brooks-i-was-wrong-about-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/world-politics-2021\/david-brooks-i-was-wrong-about-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"DAVID BROOKS, I Was Wrong About Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DAVID BROOKS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I Was Wrong About Capitalism<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
July 21, 2022<\/div>\n
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Credit<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Sean Dong<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\"David<\/a><\/div>\n
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By\u00a0<\/span>David Brooks<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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I have a specific way I tend to be wrong. I fall behind. Every day the world turns and every day I try to adjust my belief system to the realities of the moment. You would think I\u2019d be able to recognize the emerging challenges and shifting tectonics fairly quickly. As a newspaper columnist, I\u2019m paid for one skill above others: careful observation. But sometimes I\u2019m just slow. I suffer an intellectual lag.<\/p>\n

Reality has changed, but my mental frameworks just sit there. Worse, they prevent me from even seeing the change that is already underway \u2014 what the experts call \u201cconceptual blindness.\u201d I\u2019m trying to address one period\u2019s problems through the last period\u2019s frameworks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not until I dismantle and reconstruct those preconceptions that everything becomes obvious \u2014 until the next historic change.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Let\u2019s start at the beginning.<\/p>\n

When I was in high school and college, I was a democratic socialist. I was entranced by the left-wing radicals of the 1930s \u2014 the way they wrote, painted, marched and organized on behalf of working men and women. I saw the world through the lens of class struggle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n