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| Photo by emdot on Flickr |
It seemed to me there had been entirely too much confusion between the words "democracy" and "capitalism" lately, so I decided to look them up, in case I was wrong. After all, I was wrong about something else, earlier today, so I thought I'd check this out.
I chose, for purposes of comparison, definitions from the online Oxford Dictionaries, surely the contemporary version of the time-honored Oxford English Dictionary.
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CAPITALISM
from Oxford Dictionaries
—an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state
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DEMOCRACY
from Oxford Dictionaries
—a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives
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Now I can see where the ambiguity exists. Capitalism is defined as an economic and political system, whereas the definition of democracy makes no reference to economics.
So I was wrong (according to the English major’s preferred book of reference, the OED) in thinking the two words meant two entirely different things, that one meant a political system, and one an economic system. That means I was wrong twice in one day.
As a famous frog once said, it isn’t easy being green. Yes, I could go back, I could choose instead an online dictionary which defines capitalism as an economic system and leaves out the word "political" but I'll take it with a stiff upper lip and stick with my first choice, the Oxford.
So where do I go from here? The average Canadian has no right to complain about oil pipelines going across Alberta and the Rockies, and then from one side of my home province, British Columbia, to the other. But, somehow, huge mega-corporations have a "right" to large profits. Why?
Now we're getting somewhere. What about the word "right"? Do we want to get into a discussion of right and wrong? Not me. Not today, when my record is already blemished.
After all, I do know two wrongs don't make a right.
