Are capitalists clinical psychopaths? An essay in the New York Times by a literary critic implies they are. William Deresiewicz wrote that capitalism is predicated on bad behaviour, including “accounting fraud, tax evasion, toxic dumping, product safety violations, bid rigging, overfilling, perjury”. His premise is that the free market is amoral, and that capitalist values are antithetical to Christian ones.

Such outbursts, like the Occupy movement, and even the recent election of a Socialist president in France, are the products of spoilt societies that are in denial. Widespread ignorance about how material progress is achieved mean academics, politicians and union leaders are whipping up hatred of wealth creators of all kinds.

Do such activists think new products and services appear thanks to government intervention? Where do they think the money to pay for roads, schools, police and hospitals comes from? Do they believe that consumer innovation, technological advance and the funding for taxation emerge from the saintly public sector? Why is the profit motive seen as wicked, while working in places such as universities appears so very ethical?